So my existing senders have a few dead spots. This is exacerbated by my JPI 900 expecting a clean signal. Sadly my gauge does not read accurate due to corrosion likely and often the JPI will give me a red X saying there is no sender. So I’m left with two obvious options I want opinions on. First is sending existing senders out to Lockhaven for overhaul. I believe this is about $150 per sender. The second is to invest in the CiES digital senders. These are about $450 each. I only have two tanks for reference. I’m verifying with JPI that my unit is new enough to not require a 300 update which in itself could kill the deal. But does anyone have advice. Am I wasting money going with the digital senders.

Hmm, must be more obscure of a question than I thought.

Howdy Mog,
I have the M5-210C and as part of the rebuild, I gave up the bucks for the senders, 4- of them, as Fuel amount was a very critical to me during trips. I pulled out the old gages and sending units without hessitation, and put in the JPI 900 with 4 cies senders.
Due to the vital operation of the engine's good health, I also mounted it second down in radio stack. High enough to scan and close enough to read, its the best investment of the rebuild. I can part with the original senders if you want a spare set to send to Lockhaven for overhaul, so your plane isn't down, I'll take $ 75.00 each. I know the cies are pricey, but I was all in for ensuring the JPI 900 worked as intended with all the bells and whistles.

Oh, verify your wiring is solid from senders to JPI, imncluding grounds.

The 930 seemed to take up too much realestate, the 900 is just right.

As JPI indicates the old senders are effective, as long as they are good???

It comes down to importance and $, your call only.

Good luck whichever path you take!

Tom

Funny, I have the same question and was waiting to see what the powers that be would have to say. I just installed an EI CGR30P/C combo. Went through the painful process of calibrating the fuel tank read outs 5 gallons at a time. Still very inconsistent readings. I have begun to rely more on the fuel totalizer which is based on fuel flow and has proven to be highly accurate.

Still, accurate fuel gauges (senders) would be nice. Maybe then I could keep from over filling the mains when I am transferring from the aux.


Tim

The totalizer on my JPI is dead on to 10ths of a gallon. Very helpful. But it can’t account for a forgotten fuel cap, evaporation or stolen fuel. The latter two should be caught in preflight, but you never know.

Being a fence sitter for years now on upgrading to the JPI 900, I came to the conclusion that installing the it without upgrading the sensors just didn’t make sense. You give up a lot of the gain of the JPI accuracy with the old sensors.

So my plan/budget is heading down 1 of 2 paths. Upgrade to an engine monitor that doesn’t include fuel level indications (cheapest) or going whole hog and installing the 900 with the CiES senders.

Just my opinion.

I bought the Cies fuel senders, 4 of them, to complement a new EDM 930, but after realizing that limited panel real-estate would require me to place the 930 way out of good viewing, I reluctantly opted to forgo the EDM 930 and keep my EDM 700. I bought the Aerospace Logic FL204 D fuel gauge, witch is designed to read 4 Cies fuel senders. Aerospace Logic also makes a two tank unit, FL 202 D. Now my fuel gage is right in front of me, easy to scan and very accurate.

Installed JPI some time ago and senders which worked fine with stock gauges sure did throw a bunch of big red Xs with the JPI. Had rebuilt by air parts and worked pretty well. Had an occasional glitch and opted for the CiES units. They work fine but there is not much averaging in the JPI so indicated levels bounce around a fair amount.

Have set of 4 stock SW senders available for $200 if anyone interested. Probably 100 hours since rebuilds.

Pulled the trigger and ordered the CiES after JPI confirmed my EDM900 was new enough that it wouldn’t need to be returned. Hopefully no more big red X’s for me. Hate seeing the caution light and the constant warning that has to be cleared on the JPI.

Let us know how it works out.

Mog,
Good for you! You will love the CIES senders, once you get them calibrated (which is a PITA and took me 3 tries to get right).
I fly for long distances and/or long durations in SE Alaska where there are few good options for emergency landings. With that in mind I wanted to know with certainty how much gas I have on board. I bought the 4 CIES senders and the Aerospace logic digital gauge. In my opinion that setup coupled with a JPI-830 I'm running is well worth the money. I now KNOW my fuel amount down to the tenth of a gallon and it is consistent. The CIES's do bounce a little, but no where near the old windshield wiper gauges that originally came in the Maule.
The upgrade is not cheap but in my opinion is money well spent and completely well worth it.
Money is an issue for everyone so reworking the old senders sounds tempting but I've heard from several individuals of people that have had their original senders reworked only to have the same issue (or another issue) be it leaks from the center or erroneous indications or failed senders pop up a few months or a year later. I would go with the CIES senders and not look back. I'm sure you discussed your setup with CIES folks but for those on the fence you have to ensure you get the correct CIES senders as they have two different kinds, one for analog displays and a different sender for digital read outs. You loose some accuracy with the analog version, but if you don't want to upgrade to a digital readout the CIES is still an option. The aerospace logic display is small enough I have it right in front of me where my old EGT gauge was mounted. Overall I'd give the display a 8/10, major drawback is you have to select the one tank you want to get a read out on, so while it will show all 4 bars corresponding to fuel levels in each tank you only get one tank's fuel number in gallons at the bottom of the display. I know the are limited on real-estate since its only a 2-1/4 display but you'd think they could've come up with something to get more than one number to display. Still, small potatoes for having an independent verification of how much go-juice is left in the tank in case of caps off/leak/etc....
Just my 2 cents....

James

Will the Aerospace Logic display total fuel quantity digitally or just quantity in an individual tank that you select?

Kirk

Kirk,
Unfortunately unless they've upgraded the display since I bought mine about a year and a half ago, it does not display total fuel on board, just the tank selected. There is a small circular button at the bottom of the unit you can press to get it to move to the next tank over and so on but nothing that gives you the grand total of all fuel on board. If you press and hold the button it shows you a line graph of the fuel usage per tank/per time (all tanks in different color lines) which is interesting but I find less than useful. Still recommend the setup but it was a bit of a letdown to not be able to have it show the grand total.

James

So...related question, the senders are way forward in the wing from the headliner zipper. Can I finagle out the senders through the zipper and the wing root upper fairing? I have a very nice headliner that I would rather not monkey with.

Mog,
I'm not sure why you would want to have them run anywhere near your headliner. When we installed mine we ran them from the leading edge wing root down the inside of each forward post under the dash... If you just take your top wing fairing and underlying duct tape off you can follow the forward fuel line down into the cabin the routing is pretty straight forward. Hope that helps.

James