Fun tool - for those anal about their oils

[sky90]

For someone who has never done oil analysis - me - I would buy one of these. Atleast, it would be cool to whip it out at the bar... and test the beer

lubricheck

Gimmick or useful ?




* not affiliated in any way

 

[CREACHR]

Interesting.

 

[PAToyota]

I've long considered whether I should be doing oil sampling. Have never done it due to the time and cost involved. Neither is really that great, but just a matter of more things to do than hours in the day. If something like this worked and worked well, I'd definitely use it. Based on what I see, it should work...

 

[DamoPeru]

so has anyone been using one? i just stumbled across it and bought one, wow, at $50 it's a no-brainer i think. Just found my old man's birthday present as well! I understand the science behind it, and if all works as stated this would be revolutionary in terms of resource usage if it went viral. but no shop in their right mind that stocks oil would ever sell them.

 

[e9999]

Interesting. But I would like to know if it works...

As in quantifying the validity of the results against established lab instrumentation results. This only measures electrical properties. One would think that viscosity and the like matters so the question is whether such a test can tell all as they essentially claim.

Clearly, a clever business plan, though. Not easy to prove it's their fault if your engine wears out too fast...

OTOH, if it does really work and is safe to use, nice!

 

[FJ60Seth]

Website says "...oils with high levels of additives such as zinc or moly may give skewed Lubricheck test results." F/2F engines need zinc.

 

[DamoPeru]

This only measures electrical properties.

In my opinion this is enough for its intended purpose, especially if you then calibrate it to your own motor/oil. This sensor hasn't popped up out of the blue in terms of the technology it uses (but for price it certainly has), there is a lot of research on this going back well past the last decade, and the dielectric constant and its variation have been correlated to other critical oil properties including viscosity. Here's a few open access journal articles for the scientifically minded, my point is simply that the technology exists.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3274308/#__ffn_sectitle
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3231490/
http://www.bindt.org/Downloads/IJCM.1.1.pdf
https://www.google.com.pe/url?sa=t&...-g8ZM0SbGx5DopQ&bvm=bv.76247554,d.eXY&cad=rja

There are a number of low cost engine oil-quality sensors proposed in the scientific literature in recent years that I have seen, but this seems to be the first of those that i know of to get funded (by kickstarter). None of these will ever have lab precision, but for consumers they should be fine if they work properly. As a scientist myself, I'll be calibrating the sensor to my own setup that is easy to do, which should then make it an incredible tool and save me a ton of oil (money), as well as determine if it actually works for my engine/oil in the process without any risk.

I have no link to this product whatsoever, I've just always detested emptying my sump every 5000 km without any evidence whatsoever that it needed to be. I also get excited by technology that kills needless wastage.

Cheers,

 

[e9999]

Thanks, will look at those articles when I have a chance.

In the meantime, let's assume for a sec that measuring property X alone is nevertheless a good representation of the overall performance of the oil. That's bundling a whole bunch of material properties considering the different additives etc possible, so probably a stretch, but let's assume. The first question that comes to mind then is how do you decide what value of X is "still good" for your particular oil? IOW, how do you calibrate it meaningfully, considering that different oils have different additive packages, and wear is a highly subjective concept?

 

[DamoPeru]

to test/calibrate I'll take an oil sample every 750 km and note the sensor readings (1-10), including a baseline sample out of the bottle, until the lab results say the oil is done.

I'll plot the increasing sensor readings against each of the parameters measured in the lab to determine the individual parameter relationships. Assuming there are relationships and it ain't a scam, i'll test a second and third oil cycle at longer sampling intervals to determine if the relationships hold up.

that would be enough for me to confidently extend my oil changes based on the sensor readings for MY engine/oil.

 

[e9999]

All right, so you will be doing regular lab oil analyses to calibrate then. Excellent. I hope you'll be posting results here, should be very interesting.

I imagine that will work only for the one specific oil, though.

 

[DamoPeru]

Yeah, only for my engine/oil, which is 1hz-t and the regular toyota diesel oil (because you can get the same formula in any country). But anyone with another engine/oil could do the same... if you're going to spend a couple of hundreds dollars on lab testing to reep the long-term gain, any lab should be able to do the calibration for you as part of the service, they will know how to do it, you'll just need to ask.

 

[e9999]

how long will it take you to recoup your lab fees you think?

 

[DamoPeru]

how long will it take you to recoup your lab fees you think?

If I can push out to say 7500 km safely on average, then it shouldn't take too long, but it will depend on too many things to make a decent guess right now

Here's another (expensive) example of similar dielectric technology, they also have many other sensors.

http://www.kittiwake.com/oil-condition-sensor

 

[DamoPeru]

just thought i'd pass this article on, its actually one of the beeter ones i've read in terms of balancing the technical detail and layman language.

http://am.delphi.com/pdf/techpapers/2000-01-1366.pdf