2-Stroke Oil/Gas Ratio Analyzer

Votes: 45
Views: 10383

Beginning:
Trying to test concentration of oil in gas (gasoline) in my handheld leaf blower, I couldn't find any shop in my province who was able to do that. Further research on the Internet gave poor chance of my success of finding a place that can tell concentration of mixture with high accuracy and the decision was made to develop oil/gas ratio analyzer.

How it works:
Device is used to determine concentration of 2-stroke oil concentration in gas by measuring absorbance of particular wavelength of light by oil/gas solution. Suitable for determining if 2 stroke oil is present in fuel mixture especially after the engine failure.

For handheld equipment users:
2-stroke handheld equipment rely on using correct amount of oil in the fuel. Any significant deviation from correct point will cause engine failure. As for mechanics its very hard to distinguish concentration of 2 stroke oil in gas and further detailed inspection of engines are required to proof if the damage to the engines occur using too lean or too rich mixtures. Huge amount of materials are available on the Internet with explanation why it is so important to keep ratio of oil and gas within manufacturer recommendations.

Who will benefit:
Device was developed primarily for outdoor power equipment industry use. Taking into consideration that is either expensive or not possible to send mixtures to the lab for testing, device was designed to be used in non laboratory environment and have minimum interaction with user. Device has modular design/structure; if any part accidentally got damaged then it can be easily replaced without any hassle.

Little about device:
Taking into consideration weaknesses of previous prototypes in different situations last prototype is significantly improved. To keep product in affordable price range further integration of hardware to raise accuracy was dropped, to keep accuracy at high level temperature compensation was added.

Currently device can work with 4 brands of oil and if needed is able to work with up to 12 brands of oil as of now.
Range of determination of rato of solute is from 10:1 up to 100:1. Time required to analyze mixture depends on ratio of solute and usually ranges from 5min to 1 min respectively.

Some comparisons:
There are various types of test kits available on the market each of which uses different approach for testing which yields accuracy of the tests to known limits. None of the test kits available for purchase are highly accurate. Some have better accuracy then the others but most of them have something in common they are disposable i.e. for 1 time use comparing with gas/oil analyzer which is multi-use. For some test kits method is to use color table to match and that way determine the concentration which can yield to completely inaccurate results if the person who is taking tests has some sort of disorder with distinguishing color gradients, compared to analyzer which is digital.

Voting

Voting is closed!

  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Vahagn Martirosyan
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Profession:
    Engineer/Designer
  • Number of times previously entering contest:
    1
  • Vahagn's favorite design and analysis tools:
    Autodesk eagle
    Ltspice
    Proteus
  • Vahagn is inspired by:
    Because an awesome project is like an adventure and every adventure has its moments when you think the world is collapsing. You hang your head and think... “is there any way I can get this thing to work...ever?” And that also mean that your design changes 180 degree and that the original project is so far removed f om the second,third and 100th iteration that it becomes a completely new spicies of project. Which means you will have to redo all that work all that work that you had sacrificed your time and money for and it all must be redone, differently, and you are still unsure just how that is going to look at the end.
  • Patent status:
    none