@admin said in Fuel Economics:
Hi @JeremyJed and @Andrea, Saillogger can track engine hours by adding them manually to your monitoring data, and they will be part of your trackpoints. This way you can see the engine hours at the beginning and end of the trip by clicking on those trackpoints.
However, this can certainly be improved. We always aim to provide the best UX, and it is important for Saillogger that things “just” work. We are working on making this an integral part of the log that works automatically (for example, Saillogger can detect when you are sailing or motoring, handle multi-engine scenarios, and give meaningful stats). Creating the right experience is a bit involved, and we did not have a good test bed for this until recently. We finally installed sensors on our twin Yanmars (running the N2K cables was the hardest part), and this is now at the top of our list of new features. It needs proper thought and testing since it is an important feature.
Automatically tying it to fuel consumption is more complex. The math is simple, but there are many scenarios that must be accounted for in order for it to work well. For example, fuel sensors are not always precise, logic must account for multiple tanks, transfers between tanks, additional equipment like generators drawing fuel, or swells causing fluctuating readings. We aim to provide a great UX, so this will likely not be part of the initial version. A better approach may be to rate the engines’ consumption and associate it with conditions like those above. This aligns with @Andrea’s note. It is possible but not a trivial implementation.
Taking a step back, and to summarize, you can already monitor engine hours and tank levels, and we will improve the experience as soon as we can run experiments on our test bed. Fully automated stats that provide smart insights into fuel consumption will likely take longer, until we can convince ourselves that the data is really good.
Thank you for your interest and for such an insightful discussion!
I understand the logic behind wanting a robust user experience to account for all different dynamics. Me be personally, as a trawler cruiser, I'm really only interested in the averages per trip. Tank reading at engine start divided by gps miles and hours to give gallons per hour and gallons per mile - along with RPM to also show average RPMs for the trip.
As a software engineer myself, I'll just look to build a light weight service myself to track basic fuel economics.