Fuel remaining and fuel usage

[gtflash]

I was just about to treat myself to a simrance or lowrance plotter, when I read fuel remaining could not accurately be displayed based on fuel burn nmea data without an additional memory module. As a result I would like to know if anyone knows of any manufacturers displays that will provide this information without having to spend extra money. It's possible lighthouse equipped ray marine do but I'm getting confused by it all

thanks

[simonl]

does it assess much fuel is left based on how much a transducer says you've used subtracted from how much fuel it believes is in the tank?
Or do you take an NMEA output from a fuel gauge and configure the shape & height of the tank plus maybe the non-linearity of the sender?

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by simonl

does it assess much fuel is left based on how much a transducer says you've used subtracted from how much fuel it believes is in the tank?
Or do you take an NMEA output from a fuel gauge and configure the shape & height of the tank plus maybe the non-linearity of the sender?

It uses the fuel burn data from the engine ecu. You tell the head unit the size of the fuel tank & how much fuel there's in it, it then deducts the amount of fuel used by the engine. The memory module requirement is dependant on the engine, the Suzuki engine interface has it built in, the Evinrude doesn't, so an additional module is required. The module is required so that the system can store the fuel usage between engine switch on-off. Shape of tank is irrelevant.

[gtflash]

Like pikey said. But my query is do any other manufactures such as raymarine or garmin include the memory module in the mfd? Or are they all the same and require it if you don't drive a Suzuki? It's an extra £100 on lowrance

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by gtflash

Like pikey said. But my query is do any other manufactures such as raymarine or garmin include the memory module in the mfd? Or are they all the same and require it if you don't drive a Suzuki? It's an extra £100 on lowrance

As far as I'm aware no unit has the built in memory. The memory module is around the £85 quid mark