CiES Fuel Senders Resource Thread

[N6758N]

43 minutes ago, Marauder said:

 

Paul - thanks for the detailed response. If your senders all had 3 wires, something is amiss. It was my understanding that the inboards have 4 wires - red, black, blue and gray (when used for frequency mode) and the outboards were 3 wires - red, black and blue.

The picture of your outboard really helps. My short outboards (yellow ones in my picture) have 4 wires. They should have 3. And the yellow ones are the ones I am supposed to return.

This evening I will pull the factory outboards and confirm the bend design. Thanks for taking the time to write this up.


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I can see the outboard ones they sent you are different than the ones they sent Paul @kortopates. Perhaps They sent you ones with the shorter arms so that they do not have to be bent anymore? I will come by this evening and see if we can get it all sorted out. I think the wiring is correct, 4 wires for inboard and 3 for outboard. 

[gsxrpilot]

All I'll say is that I'm loving mine. It took a bit to get them install correctly, get the JPI configured correctly, and get it all calibrated. But on the flight yesterday from Austin to OKC, it sure was nice to know exactly what fuel I had and where it was.

This is well worth the effort guys.

[N6758N]

Just now, gsxrpilot said:

All I'll say is that I'm loving mine. It took a bit to get them install correctly, get the JPI configured correctly, and get it all calibrated. But on the flight yesterday from Austin to OKC, it sure was nice to know exactly what fuel I had and where it was.

This is well worth the effort guys.

I think the technology inside the sender is awesome Paul, and I do believe once we get everything sorted out, they will provide years of reliable, accurate fuel readings. It's just the teething problems and the fact that CiES doesn't seems to always know their own product that is frustrating. I have told Chris @Marauder not to lose faith as I know we will get it sorted out in the end. It sure is frustrating in the mean time though. 

[Marauder]

I think the technology inside the sender is awesome Paul, and I do believe once we get everything sorted out, they will provide years of reliable, accurate fuel readings. It's just the teething problems and the fact that CiES doesn't seems to always know their own product that is frustrating. I have told Chris [mention=9886]Marauder[/mention] not to lose faith as I know we will get it sorted out in the end. It sure is frustrating in the mean time though. 

And if you don't get this sorted out, I'm going to hold your new fuel caps for ransom.




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[Marauder]

I can see the outboard ones they sent you are different than the ones they sent Paul [mention=7862]kortopates[/mention]. Perhaps They sent you ones with the shorter arms so that they do not have to be bent anymore? I will come by this evening and see if we can get it all sorted out. I think the wiring is correct, 4 wires for inboard and 3 for outboard. 

 

The shorter arm ones were the original ones they sent me. They were labeled "outboard" and have 4 wires. The long straight ones with 4 wires should be correct for the inboard senders. CiES just sent these to me. The other long arm ones are 3 wire ones and although they are labeled "inboard" Scott told me these are the "outboard" senders -- obviously much different than Paul's.

 

I'm still try to figure out how Paul wired his with only 3 wires on the master inboard senders. I'm willing to bet the inboards are only sending signal in.

 

 

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[N6758N]

7 minutes ago, Marauder said:

 

And if you don't get this sorted out, I'm going to hold your new fuel caps for ransom.




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[gsxrpilot]

1 hour ago, N6758N said:

I think the technology inside the sender is awesome Paul, and I do believe once we get everything sorted out, they will provide years of reliable, accurate fuel readings. It's just the teething problems and the fact that CiES doesn't seems to always know their own product that is frustrating. I have told Chris @Marauder not to lose faith as I know we will get it sorted out in the end. It sure is frustrating in the mean time though. 

My experience was completely different in that Scott at CiES had quick and ready answers for all my questions. The support at JPI was terrible though. In the end, we finally got to the correct answers from JPI and the unit was configured correctly. The CiES senders on the other hand, were straight forward from the beginning and the information from Scott was correct and accurate from the very beginning.

Just my $0.02

[N6758N]

29 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

My experience was completely different in that Scott at CiES had quick and ready answers for all my questions. The support at JPI was terrible though. In the end, we finally got to the correct answers from JPI and the unit was configured correctly. The CiES senders on the other hand, were straight forward from the beginning and the information from Scott was correct and accurate from the very beginning.

Just my $0.02

I have never been thrilled with JPI technical support either, however in this case they seem to be more of a straight shooter than CiES. At Oshkosh they told me here are the senders you need, your JPI will not need to go back for any modifications, basically plug and play. They also did not mention there was two styles of senders. I put myself partially at fault here for not doing more of my own research, however after talking with Scott at the show it seemed like he was knowledgeable and confident in what he was selling so I went ahead and ordered the senders for myself and @Marauder. I think he is in over his head with all the different variations of aircraft and displays that the senders talk to. Like I said previously, I'm sure we will get it sorted out in the end, and I'm happy to hear you have an operational system! Now if only I could make the rest of my panel look like @gsxrpilots 252...

[kortopates]

2 hours ago, Marauder said:

 

The shorter arm ones were the original ones they sent me. They were labeled "outboard" and have 4 wires. The long straight ones with 4 wires should be correct for the inboard senders. CiES just sent these to me. The other long arm ones are 3 wire ones and although they are labeled "inboard" Scott told me these are the "outboard" senders -- obviously much different than Paul's.

 

I'm still try to figure out how Paul wired his with only 3 wires on the master inboard senders. I'm willing to bet the inboards are only sending signal in.

 

 

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Since you bring that up, I should add its possible the senders did change before they were installed. That picture was taken at the time of the what I could refer to as the first install. After that we had one sensor replaced by Scott but it didn't fix our issue and Scott didn't confirm it was faulty. In retrospect it probably wasn't and was a JPI issue. After that they went on a lengthy tour, first to CIES with a Demo JPI 900 unit where Scott had problems with the JPI 900 trying to apply one of many JPI firmware fixs provided to the 900 when he was testing, so they then came back unresolved. Next my JPI 900 and the 4 senders all went to JPI for sometime where they tested and finally were convinced they had a solution but also believed one of the senders was bad. This was when the latest, as far as I know, firmware (and apparently hardware) fix was engineered and tested on my setup at JPI. From JPI they went directly back to Scott, but Scott indicated he only replaced one sender that he believed got accidentally fried during testing saying someone probably accidentally put power to the frequency wire. He had said he had 4 new sensors ready to go when he got all of my stuff for the last time to test, but as far as I know only one of the senders was swapped out. Before they were installed for the final time they were re-wired with new connectors and ground was pulled back from the senders to the JPI. It turned out there was still a glitch in our wiring, suspected to be a grounding issue. So that last re-install made sure we had a good ground and finally resolved it. 

The main thing I would have done differently now with all the hindsight would have been to rig a full test harness wired to the JPI before ever installing the units for the first time. That would have resolved the biggest issues at much less effort; except for the outboard senders arm fit issue that initially threw us for a loop since Scott's believed his outboard senders supposedly were already accounting for this. 

 Unfortunately though for you, I can only easily verify the number of wires on the outboard senders. To verify the inboard senders number of wires I would need to pull interior and big side wall panel out. So to be sure on the number of wires I'd check with Scott, these have been evolving quite a bit since I started the process around last thanksgiving during a full new panel install.

But I am confident they are working properly. Our original problem was that we got a very unstable reading when the 4 sensor was connected - oddly any 3 connected provided a stable readings, but not 4. JPI's fix addressed that. Plus its very clear from calibrating the tanks that the frequency values between inboard and outboard are additive since when fuel is added, initially only the inboard rises with reading changes and towards the end only the outboard continues to rise with reading changes. 

 

Edited August 24, 2017 by kortopates

[Bob_Belville]

17 minutes ago, kortopates said:

Since you bring that up, I should add its possible the senders did change before they were installed. That picture was taken at the time of the what I could refer to as the first install. After that we had one sensor replaced by Scott but it didn't fix our issue and Scott didn't confirm it was faulty. In retrospect it probably wasn't and was a JPI issue. After that they went on a lengthy tour, first to CIES with a Demo JPI 900 unit where Scott had problems with the JPI 900 trying to apply one of many JPI firmware fixs provided to the 900 when he was testing, so they then came back unresolved. Next my JPI 900 and the 4 senders all went to JPI for sometime where they tested and finally were convinced they had a solution but also believed one of the senders was bad. This was when the latest, as far as I know, firmware (and apparently hardware) fix was engineered and tested on my setup at JPI. From JPI they went directly back to Scott, but Scott indicated he only replaced one sender that he believed got accidentally fried during testing saying someone probably accidentally put power to the frequency wire. He had said he had 4 new sensors ready to go when he got all of my stuff for the last time to test, but as far as I know only one of the senders was swapped out. Before they were installed for the final time they were re-wired with new connectors and ground was pulled back from the senders to the JPI. It turned out there was still a glitch in our wiring, suspected to be a grounding issue. So that last re-install made sure we had a good ground and finally resolved it. 

The main thing I would have done differently now with all the hindsight would have been to rig a full test harness wired to the JPI before ever installing the units for the first time. That would have resolved the biggest issues at much less effort; except for the outboard senders arm fit issue that initially threw us for a loop since Scott's believed his outboard senders supposedly were already accounting for this. 

 Unfortunately though for you, I can only easily verify the number of wires on the outboard senders. To verify the inboard senders number of wires I would need to pull interior and big side wall panel out. So to be sure on the number of wires I'd check with Scott, these have been evolving quite a bit since I started the process around last thanksgiving during a full new panel install.

But I am confident they are working properly. Our original problem was that we got a very unstable reading when the 4 sensor was connected - oddly any 3 connected provided a stable readings, but not 4. JPI's fix addressed that. Plus its very clear from calibrating the tanks that the frequency values between inboard and outboard are additive since when fuel is added, initially only the inboard rises with reading changes and towards the end only the outboard continues to rise with reading changes. 

 

Wow, I might wait until my 2019 annual.  But my 54 gallons system only uses 2 senders, one per wing.

[kortopates]

6 minutes ago, Bob_Belville said:

Wow, I might wait until my 2019 annual.  But my 54 gallons system only uses 2 senders, one per wing.

With only two senders you shouldn't have any problems - lots of 2 sender installs already out there. And as far as I know, without all the hardship and delay I went through.  

Edited August 24, 2017 by kortopates

[Bob_Belville]

Just now, kortopates said:

With only two senders you shouldn't have any problems - lots of you already out there. And as far as I know, without all the hardship and delay I went through.  

@kortopates Paul, you probably know more about EDMs than JPI does... 2 of the last 3 of my flights failed to log as flights. There was an error message of some kind on the EDM 930 screen but I did not know the data was going to go missing so I did not copy it or take note of what it said. (We just pulled the fuel injection servo for replacement so I will not be able to fly for a week or 2 to see if the problem persists.) Any thoughts?

[N6758N]

8 minutes ago, kortopates said:

With only two senders you shouldn't have any problems - lots of 2 sender installs already out there. And as far as I know, without all the hardship and delay I went through.  

Here is another issue I have been thinking a lot about. In the case of @Marauder, he and I have essentially identical systems, 54.8 gallon bladders and a JPI EDM-900 for a primary engine gauges. He is in an F, and I in a C. So I have 2 senders vs his 4, but what is to stop me from only installing 2 senders in his airplane? I've been trying to interpert this from a legality standpoint and I can't come to a firm conclusion whether deleting 2 senders is a major alteration or not, anyone with (with experience) want to chime in here? The fuel senders are not listed on the type cert, so that isn't an issue, however part 43 Appendix A states this as a major alteration- xii) Changes to the basic design of the fuel, oil, cooling, heating, cabin pressurization, electrical, hydraulic, de-icing, or exhaust systems. My thought is by removing the outboard fuel senders, I am changing the basic design of the fuel system. What do you guys think? 

[Bob_Belville]

7 minutes ago, N6758N said:

Here is another issue I have been thinking a lot about. In the case of @Marauder, he and I have essentially identical systems, 54.8 gallon bladders and a JPI EDM-900 for a primary engine gauges. He is in an F, and I in a C. So I have 2 senders vs his 4, but what is to stop me from only installing 2 senders in his airplane? I've been trying to interpert this from a legality standpoint and I can't come to a firm conclusion whether deleting 2 senders is a major alteration or not, anyone with (with experience) want to chime in here? The fuel senders are not listed on the type cert, so that isn't an issue, however part 43 Appendix A states this as a major alteration- xii) Changes to the basic design of the fuel, oil, cooling, heating, cabin pressurization, electrical, hydraulic, de-icing, or exhaust systems. My thought is by removing the outboard fuel senders, I am changing the basic design of the fuel system. What do you guys think? 

Interesting. When @Marauderwent to bladders he lost total capacity and I suppose has exactly the same 3 cells per side arrangement that I have in my E. I only have 1 sender per side so I wonder whether his outboard sender is doing anything or just sitting in an empty compartment. do you suppose the O&N authorization (STC?) deals with the sender change?

[N6758N]

1 minute ago, Bob_Belville said:

Interesting. When @Marauderwent to bladders he lost total capacity and I suppose has exactly the same 3 cells per side arrangement that I have in my E. I only have 1 sender per side so I wonder whether his outboard sender is doing anything or just sitting in an empty compartment. do you suppose the O&N authorization (STC?) deals with the sender change?

I spoke with Griggs about this issue and they told me there are different bladder STCs for the F,J, etc versus the C,D,E, and G. I suppose the bladders are different as they have an extra hole, whoever that would be very straight forward to patch. He mentioned the CiES STCs as a source for deviation, when I look at their AML list, it lumps all M20s under the same category, so by that means we could get away with it. 

[Bob_Belville]

1 minute ago, N6758N said:

I spoke with Griggs about this issue and they told me there are different bladder STCs for the F,J, etc versus the C,D,E, and G. I suppose the bladders are different as they have an extra hole, whoever that would be very straight forward to patch. He mentioned the CiES STCs as a source for deviation, when I look at their AML list, it lumps all M20s under the same category, so by that means we could get away with it. 

Other than to outboard "hole" are the bladders the same? I have the same 54.8 gallon nominal capacity so I suppose they are and that there might not be a need for the outboard senders. OTOH, it is possible that having those senders reading the top of the outboard cell would give a meaningful reading. My gauge does not drop until several gallons have been used since the single sender is initially pinned to the top of the tank.

[N6758N]

6 minutes ago, Bob_Belville said:

Other than to outboard "hole" are the bladders the same? I have the same 54.8 gallon nominal capacity so I suppose they are and that there might not be a need for the outboard senders. OTOH, it is possible that having those senders reading the top of the outboard cell would give a meaningful reading. My gauge does not drop until several gallons have been used since the single sender is initially pinned to the top of the tank.

Yes, to my knowledge the bladders are identical. There may be some merit to your theory about the outboard senders communicating immediately that there is less fuel in the wing though. I know that the system will work with only two, since that's the way it is designed for us guys with short bodies. I am interested to see how the new senders act with my airplane, because my old ones don't register much if any loss in fuel until I have burned a few gallons out of each side. 

[kortopates]

36 minutes ago, Bob_Belville said:

@kortopates Paul, you probably know more about EDMs than JPI does... 2 of the last 3 of my flights failed to log as flights. There was an error message of some kind on the EDM 930 screen but I did not know the data was going to go missing so I did not copy it or take note of what it said. (We just pulled the fuel injection servo for replacement so I will not be able to fly for a week or 2 to see if the problem persists.) Any thoughts?

Do you recognize the error message from one of these: https://www.jpinstruments.com/FAQCategory/edm-930-error-messages/ 

Although some of those have accompanying values but that might be enough for you to match it to one and if so JPI tech support should be able to helpful. I personally have not seen one where logged data was lost except for over writing old data.

[Bob_Belville]

1 minute ago, kortopates said:

Do you recognize the error message from one of these: https://www.jpinstruments.com/FAQCategory/edm-930-error-messages/ 

Although some of those have accompanying values but that might be enough for you to match it to one and if so JPI tech support should be able to helpful. I personally have not seen one where logged data was lost except for over writing old data.

This is the only possibility. And since the EDM has been installed and working for 4.5 years I would not think a jumper or pinout change could have occurred. I cannot start the engine at the moment but I can flip the master switch and see if the error message appears again. Thanks for the help.

“DATA COMMUNICATION ERROR”

The EDM-930 shows a black screen and a “Data Communication Error” message at start up or during operation. Check the J1(P1) 25 pin Power/Option connector to see if anything is pinned into pins #11 and #24. If so remove these. Retry. If you still receive the“Data Communication Error” message, then the EDM will need to come in for repair. Please call Technical Support at 800-345-4574 for a RMA number before sending in.

[kortopates]

12 minutes ago, Bob_Belville said:

Other than to outboard "hole" are the bladders the same? I have the same 54.8 gallon nominal capacity so I suppose they are and that there might not be a need for the outboard senders. OTOH, it is possible that having those senders reading the top of the outboard cell would give a meaningful reading. My gauge does not drop until several gallons have been used since the single sender is initially pinned to the top of the tank.

The truth is I'd wager Bob is exactly right. And that is exactly why you would expect Mooney added the outboard sender - to give better fuel quantity range at near full. But to get approval I seriously doubt your FSDO will approve it as a field approval and would expect you to hire a DAR to engineer a one time STC. Even if he can pull it off, showing the outboard doesn't add anything because of bladders,  I'd expect its going to cost you more in the end. 

[N6758N]

1 minute ago, kortopates said:

The truth is I'd wager Bob is exactly right. And that is exactly why you would expect Mooney added the outboard sender - to give better fuel quantity range at near full. But to get approval I seriously doubt your FSDO will approve it as a field approval and would expect you to hire a DAR to engineer a one time STC. Even if he can pull it off, showing the outboard doesn't add anything because of bladders,  I'd expect its going to cost you more in the end. 

Here in Philly, the FSDO does not like giving out field approvals at all, I agree that it wouldn't be worth the effort. 

[Marauder]

Here in Philly, the FSDO does not like giving out field approvals at all, I agree that it wouldn't be worth the effort. 

You guys done debating my fate?


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[Marauder]

I will be providing a full write-up in the next week with all of the things we are doing to install these senders. That write-up will happen after the dust settles in southeastern PA.

I will say that the CiES Installation manual leaves a lot to guess work. There is no mention of the difference between bladder and wet wing installs.

It is clear JPI has been working on this frequency thing for a while based on the release of their wiring diagram that came with the JPI after the modification they made to the unit. They also provided a cable and I recommend using it. -- again more in the full write-up.

Here is the JPI wiring diagram:



I also saw on Aircraft Spruce there is a configuration option to buy the unit already configured for CiES senders in frequency mode. None of this was mentioned in the CiES Installation manual.



As someone who works in the OEM electronics world, I believe CiES should have done a better job of providing the necessary information to let consumers know what was going to be required to install these units in any particular mode. I am also a bit concerned over their QA when it comes to sending out properly configured senders. Again more in the full write-up. I also think JPI probably was left sorting through how to make these work in frequency mode. As someone who has seen this happen to OEM electronics, it makes them look bad but better coordination of the aftermarket product with the OEM would have prevented this.

I'm hopeful that Terry and I will look back and laugh at this comedy routine we are going through to make these work. But for now, it's been a frustrating adventure.


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[N6758N]

These senders have been nothing but a nightmare. I wired my own airplane over the weekend following the CiES installation manual while referencing JPIs install manual available online. JPI did not publish this new diagram anywhere, we did not get it until our units arrived back from JPIs modification to run in frequency mode. The CiES manual does not mention anywhere the need to run the grounds back to the unit, nor does it mention anything specific to the JPI. So now @Marauder and I get to rewire our airplanes again, what fun! So happy to waste my time because CiES didn't do their homework properly. 

[peevee]

19 minutes ago, N6758N said:

These senders have been nothing but a nightmare. I wired my own airplane over the weekend following the CiES installation manual while referencing JPIs install manual available online. JPI did not publish this new diagram anywhere, we did not get it until our units arrived back from JPIs modification to run in frequency mode. The CiES manual does not mention anywhere the need to run the grounds back to the unit, nor does it mention anything specific to the JPI. So now @Marauder and I get to rewire our airplanes again, what fun! So happy to waste my time because CiES didn't do their homework properly. 

That sucks man, sorry. Lots of money spent for incomplete information.