How to Read Fuel Dispenser data in LabVIEW

[Asif138]

Hello to every one..

i want to make fuel management system for vehicle. i want to read fuel dispenser data ( amount of fuel filled any vehicle) in LabVIEW.

is it possible to connect fuel dispenser with LabVIEW?

If any one have idea please suggest is it possible or not?

Thanks in Advance .

Asif 

[cbutcher]

Hi Asif,

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@Asif138 wrote:

i want to read fuel dispenser data ( amount of fuel filled any vehicle) in LabVIEW.

is it possible to connect fuel dispenser with LabVIEW?

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Yes - probably. But you'll need some sort of sensor. Does your "fuel dispenser" have some sensor built in, and some way to communicate this value?

If it contains some interface for getting a "volume dispensed" value, you can almost certainly write LabVIEW code to communicate with this (in whatever way is appropriate) and then receive the information you're looking for.

What is your "fuel dispenser" in this question? (i.e. part number, does it have a manual you can attach, etc).

If it doesn't directly have that information available (i.e. no built in sensor), can you attach a sensor (flow meter, maybe?). With a flow rate, you'd need to integrate the value to get the total volume over a period of time (i.e. from start to finish).

[Asif138]

many thanks for your swift replay .

in this case my fuel dispenser would be diesel pump, right now i do not any information about the model number of pump. i guess if it have any serial or usb port to data out, so how to read,

2nd option i am thinking to read its display using OCR.

what options you would recommend.

thanks again.

asif

[GerdW]

Hi Asif,

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@Asif138 wrote:

in this case my fuel dispenser would be diesel pump, right now i do not any information about the model number of pump. i guess if it have any serial or usb port to data out, so how to read,

2nd option i am thinking to read its display using OCR.

what options you would recommend.

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Using a flow meter with a small DAQ device most often is much easier than to implement OCR with a camera…

(Ofcourse you can buy a flow meter with electronics including a (virtual) COM port to even more simplify your setup.)

[Asif138]

GerdW your are right,

but there may be still need to calibration of any sensor if i added, and so must be some error in actual fuel filled and read from sensor. so i am avoiding to use sensor. 

i just test OCR reading text but now thinking to code for reading digital multi meter display.

Thanks,

asif

[GerdW]

Hi Asif,

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@Asif138 wrote:

but there may be still need to calibration of any sensor if i added, and so must be some error in actual fuel filled and read from sensor. so i am avoiding to use sensor. 

i just test OCR reading text but now thinking to code for reading digital multi meter display.

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I don't understand what you try to express here!

So you want to get a measurement value, but you also want to avoid a sensor???

Even when there is some kind of OCR display there must be a sensor somewhere to produce data to be displayed on this display: this sensor needs to be calibrated anyway!

And attaching this DMM will force you to calibrate another hardware as now you need to calibrate not just the sensor, but also the DMM…

[cbutcher]

Hi Asif, 

As Gerd said, in order to receive a measurement value you will need some sort of measurement device.

I would strongly suspect that any OCR-based system will be much harder to implement than any of:

• Pump with built-in flow meter and serial/digital output
• Pump with built-in flow meter and analog output, combined with simple DAQ device
• Pump and separate flow meter with either of the above output configurations
• Really, almost anything at all... Cameras are hard work!

Writing code without any idea about your sensor type is fairly tricky - you can code to an interface of some kind (you're using 2020, so you can use an actual Interface, or simply an abstract class) and implement the measurement later, but there might not be much more that you care about to code (e.g. calculations, display, logging).

When will you decide on/be told about your sensor type?

[power_Jack]

Each dispenser has its own controller card which is connected to the dispenser sensors like flowmeter and others. In my opinion, there is no need to install your sensors, all what you need to do is to connect your LabVIEW to the controller protocol.

However, it is not so easy! the problem is that most of the dispenser suppliers do not share their control cards specifications. Although some of the communication protocols are popular such as RS485 and current loop, the problem still is to connect to the card. You need to have an expert with you because most of the supplier as I just mentioned are not supportive.