Page 1 of 1

Monitoring Ethanol Content with Zeitronix ECA-2

Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2021 10:45 am
by Kaldek
Whilst it is currently not possible to select an option for monitoring ethanol content for E85 vehicles in UTCOMP, you can use the existing pressure options when using an ethanol sensor that outputs a 0-5v signal, which in this example is a Zeitronix ECA-2 (http://zeitronix.com/Products/ECA/ECA2.shtml).

To obtain this data you must tap the blue/white wire coming from the Zeitronix ECA-2 and feed this into one of the ADC inputs in the UTCOMP. Preferably this ADC input should be assigned to the "fuel pressure sensor (diesel common-rail)" option as this makes the most sense and only the pressure configuration options can be customised with the "a and b" values.

To cut things short if you don't want to read all the additional detail below, the calibration data for the Zeitronix is:
a=1.38
b=0.00

Whilst these values may not make initial sense, understand that UTCOMP expects you to be measuring BAR pressure even if you are displaying "PSI". In our case we are literally pretending that the PSI value is a percentage value. As a result, I had convert what 100 "psi" is to BAR and then enter that BAR value into the calculator as all calculations are in BAR.

Obviously, we are not monitoring PSI 0-100 but ethanol percentage 0-100. However, as we are "fudging" this a bit, this is what we have to do.

The result is that when you show "fuel pressure" on the UTCOMP display you will get the correct 0-100 reading for ethanol percentage, even though it says "PSI" on the display.
PXL_20210324_091505931.jpg
PXL_20210324_091505931.jpg (3.12 MiB) Viewed 13207 times


Yes, our E85 in Victoria, Australia is very close to true 85%, usually right on 83%.