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Old 09-10-2022, 10:34 AM   #1
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Do Gauges Have Signal Loss

I am considering adding another gauge or two on both of my Thomas and International. Considering that these buses are rear engines, the wires from the sender to the dash are very long. Perhaps the long run is compensated some how. Another member mentioned Scan 3 as another way of adding additional gauges with additional functions. So whether I buy individual gauges or scan 3, how do you deal long wire runs on a 40' bus?

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Old 09-10-2022, 11:24 AM   #2
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It depends on the guage you're intending on installing.

Pyrometers for instance are very picky on install wiring. Certain other gauges are too.
Any electric-resistive gauge will likely be fine, so long as the wire used doesn't add any additional resistance. Mechanical gauges likely won't work. I'm not aware of any mechanical temp gauge that has 40+foot of capillary tube, and I wouldn't recommend install 40+foot of nylon hose for oil pressure or boost pressure.

Scan gauge can work, so long as the data you're wanting to view via gauge is observed by the engine ecm and transmitted over the data bus.

Look into the banks iDash as another option. It will allow you to view info off the data bus and also install any additional sensors that aren't currently installed. But I'm not sure if the iDash is j1939 compatible, or if it's strictly OBD2 protocol.
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Old 09-10-2022, 11:26 AM   #3
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At the low current those sense wires carry, the voltage drop in a 10 meter run would be less than 1% with a tiny 20 gauge wire. The gauge measures resistance and the resulting voltage drop, through the sensor (which is usually a variable resistive element). Changing the result the gauge sees, at the front of the bus, by less than 1% won't even be visible in the needle movement. So, I guess my point is that I've never tried to compensate for the length and I've not seen senders or gauges with that compensation adjustment (at least not in any affordable versions I've shopped or used). I don't think you'll notice.

EDIT: After hitting post, I saw Booyah's response. He makes a good point about the capillary gauges - I was thinking only of electrical, which is all I've used in our rear engine buses.
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Old 09-10-2022, 12:01 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by rossvtaylor View Post
At the low current those sense wires carry, the voltage drop in a 10 meter run would be less than 1% with a tiny 20 gauge wire. The gauge measures resistance and the resulting voltage drop, through the sensor (which is usually a variable resistive element). Changing the result the gauge sees, at the front of the bus, by less than 1% won't even be visible in the needle movement. So, I guess my point is that I've never tried to compensate for the length and I've not seen senders or gauges with that compensation adjustment (at least not in any affordable versions I've shopped or used). I don't think you'll notice.

EDIT: After hitting post, I saw Booyah's response. He makes a good point about the capillary gauges - I was thinking only of electrical, which is all I've used in our rear engine buses.

So with that said, if I used #12 wire from the sending unit (rear eng.) to the dash, it should be ok??
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Old 09-10-2022, 01:06 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by budbud7 View Post
So with that said, if I used #12 wire from the sending unit (rear eng.) to the dash, it should be ok??
Oh yes, that's larger than necessary. Going bigger isn't a problem, except for the increased cost - but it would be just fine to use that. If you haven't bought the wire yet, you could get 18 or 16 gauge and those are also bigger than needed.
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Old 09-10-2022, 03:19 PM   #6
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I have added about 10 gauges including a pyrometer with the correct lead and they work just fine. Mine is a rear engine.
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