Does your Dakota Digital range work appropriately?

[Mike Shull]

I’ve been working with Dakota Digital for about 6 months on my range display and we haven’t been able to figure out how to fix it. I have asked about a dozen people who have a DD gauge and none of them have enabled the range to display on their screen and they do not know whether it is working.

Does your range work and how accurate is it?

Mine displays between 0-2 miles no matter what level of fuel I have, and it sometimes displays a line of dashes. I’ve done all sorts of resets and taken various measurements for DD, including draining my tank and comparing my actual fuel level with the ohm readings and everything is spot on. I am getting 225-240 miles to a 20 gallon tank on the pavement and 150-175 off-road. It seems that the high variance in consumption is confusing the DD calculations but they don’t seem to think that is the problem. I have 4500 miles on this setup and the best range that I have ever seen was 35 miles, and that was after a reset. I’ve also manually calibrated my fuel levels with no luck. My speed is spot on, but just to make sure I have run through the recalibration steps twice and clarified that the speed is hooked to an electronic VSS on the transfer case.

Thoughts?

 

[rlong]

Maybe it can’t believe how bad your/our milage is! And defaults to “you better get gas!”

 

[Mike Shull]

Maybe it can’t believe how bad your/our milage is! And defaults to “you better get gas!”

Haha! No doubt. I mentioned that to DD and they seemed to think that terrible mileage shouldn’t affect the calculations. I thought that I was doing pretty good considering that I am nearly 6k pounds. Ha. It used to get 4-6 mpg with the SBC.

 

[sogncab]

I dont have it enabled on mine. When I start getting low on fuel, I'm usually watching the percentage remaining.


Tangent:
I just replaced my sender, so I trust nothing right now. Went through one recalibrate. I've found it takes a couple of tries before you get it spot on.
Might be easier if you pump the tank dry and do it that way. I'm always at the pump doing it.


I wish they had a way to dial in the ohms for full, ¾, ½, ¼ levels. I feel i could get it really dialed in.

 

[Jdc1]

I dont have it enabled on mine. When I start getting low on fuel, I'm usually watching the percentage remaining.


Tangent:
I just replaced my sender, so I trust nothing right now. Went through one recalibrate. I've found it takes a couple of tries before you get it spot on.
Might be easier if you pump the tank dry and do it that way. I'm always at the pump doing it.


I wish they had a way to dial in the ohms for full, ¾, ½, ¼ levels. I feel i could get it really dialed in.

Pull it out- watch the Dakota reading in the setup and then do the math on a sheet of paper. I use a helper to set as I work the sender.

 

[Mike Shull]

I dont have it enabled on mine. When I start getting low on fuel, I'm usually watching the percentage remaining.


Tangent:
I just replaced my sender, so I trust nothing right now. Went through one recalibrate. I've found it takes a couple of tries before you get it spot on.
Might be easier if you pump the tank dry and do it that way. I'm always at the pump doing it.


I wish they had a way to dial in the ohms for full, ¾, ½, ¼ levels. I feel i could get it really dialed in.

You can do this if I am thinking about what you are saying correctly. Even though I am using a standard GM sender, which is part of the preprogrammed settings, I manually setup my sender ohms to the amount of gallons that I put in but that didn’t change the range problem for me. I ended up switching back to the preprogrammed GM 0-90 ohm setting after doing another reset, which is extremely accurate.

Could I talk you into having a glance at your range screen and report back your fuel percentage and range readings?

 

[MOTOV8R]

Do you set the tank capacity anywhere in the settings? Without this it doesn’t seem like it can calculate a range. Sounds like you need to be in touch with a person who does the coding at DD.

 

[Mike Shull]

Do you set the tank capacity anywhere in the settings? Without this it doesn’t seem like it can calculate a range. Sounds like you need to be in touch with a person who does the coding at DD.

Not unless you manually configure the fuel sender. I am in touch with engineering and tech support and they tell me that range is calculated by “…using speed, miles, and ohms readings from sender.”

 

[sogncab]

Pull it out- watch the Dakota reading in the setup and then do the math on a sheet of paper. I use a helper to set as I work the sender.

That really only only works if you know the range of movement in the tank?

Or am I way over thinking this?

 

[sogncab]

Could I talk you into having a glance at your range screen and report back your fuel percentage and range readings?

I'll monkey with it right now.

I'm using a Toyota sender, sonit doesn't match up with the preset resistance ranges

 

[sogncab]

Took me a minute to figure out where to turn it on.

I reset my trip at every fill. So I've got 95.2 miles since I filled.

With Range enabled, it's showing I have 178.1 miles remaining. Thats potentially really close to reality. I normally get around 20mpg with this thing. Max i can hope to get is 320(ish) miles on a tank before it goes pedestrian mode.

I also dont trust zero right now. I just calibrated it yesterday, and I dont know how it's reading near the bottom. I got better mileage than normal and had more fuel on than I thought when I filled.

 

[Jdc1]

That really only only works if you know the range of movement in the tank?

Or am I way over thinking this?

It’s not going to be exact- but you can get pretty close.

 

[Mike Shull]

Took me a minute to figure out where to turn it on.

I reset my trip at every fill. So I've got 95.2 miles since I filled.

View attachment 3991534


With Range enabled, it's showing I have 178.1 miles remaining. Thats potentially really close to reality. I normally get around 20mpg with this thing. Max i can hope to get is 320(ish) miles on a tank before it goes pedestrian mode.

View attachment 3991535


I also dont trust zero right now. I just calibrated it yesterday, and I dont know how it's reading near the bottom. I got better mileage than normal and had more fuel on than I thought when I filled.

Now I am jealous that your range works and that you have such a long range. Thanks for checking that out. I have no idea what is wrong with mine but I wonder if it’s having a hard time calculating 7-13 mpg.

 

[sogncab]

Now I am jealous that your range works and that you have such a long range. Thanks for checking that out. I have no idea what is wrong with mine but I wonder if it’s having a hard time calculating 7-13 mpg.

Energy density of diesel vs gasoline.

You're probably never going to get a super accurate reading from the Dakota Digital cluster.

I think the modern stuff is pretty darn good because they're pulling fuel data from multiple places. Fuel level, and current fuel burn.

 

[Mike Shull]

Energy density of diesel vs gasoline.

You're probably never going to get a super accurate reading from the Dakota Digital cluster.

I think the modern stuff is pretty darn good because they're pulling fuel data from multiple places. Fuel level, and current fuel burn.

Yes, that and a combined weight of 9,500 lbs when I am pulling the camper doesn’t help, especially when pulling it over mountain passes.

 

[Mike Shull]

Energy density of diesel vs gasoline.

You're probably never going to get a super accurate reading from the Dakota Digital cluster.

I think the modern stuff is pretty darn good because they're pulling fuel data from multiple places. Fuel level, and current fuel burn.

I didn’t see what you wrote below your first sentence for some reason. My blinders were on. I agree though I would expect it to read more than a 2-mile range when the tank is full.

 

[MOTOV8R]

Not unless you manually configure the fuel sender. I am in touch with engineering and tech support and they tell me that range is calculated by “…using speed, miles, and ohms readings from sender.”

Somewhere they have to have a conversion factor for ohms to gallons. The sender just gives them the vertical dimension.

 

[Mike Shull]

Somewhere they have to have a conversion factor for ohms to gallons. The sender just gives them the vertical dimension.

I get that. I only know what they told me and they specifically said that gallons don’t factor into the equation. It seems odd but the math still works. If I can go 200 miles on 90ohms, then I should be able to go 100 miles on 45 ohms.

 

[MOTOV8R]

I get that. I only know what they told me and they specifically said that gallons don’t factor into the equation. It seems odd but the math still works. If I can go 200 miles on 90ohms, then I should be able to go 100 miles on 45 ohms.

That makes sense! Also explains why they don’t show mpg.