Autonomous fuel counters on farm tractors
How a Ukrainian agricultural company measured real tractor consumption without trackers or subscriptions — and paid back the meters in two months.
“Mir” agricultural company
“Mir” was founded in 2001 on the base of a collective farm with a 60-year history and became a leading agricultural company in Ukraine’s Kirovohrad region. It grows wheat, corn, sunflower, beet and peas and produces milk and sugar.
- 70+ employees
- 4,500+ hectares of arable land
- 30+ machines
Tank sensors that couldn’t keep up with rough fields
The tractors — veteran MTZ-80s (80 hp, quota 5.5 L/h) and modern John Deere 8310Rs (310 hp, quota 60.2 L/h) — already had tank-level sensors and GPS trackers from another vendor. But on rough terrain the fuel sloshes in the tank, so level-based data was unreliable for short periods (per site, per day or week), and it couldn’t detect theft from the supply and return lines.
Management decided to measure consumption directly. Online GPS tracking wasn’t needed for that.
Battery-powered DFM counters
DFM autonomous fuel counters were mounted in the supply and return lines: DFM 100B on the MTZ-80s and DFM 250B on the John Deeres. They run on a built-in battery — no connection to the tractor’s electrics — and fuel keeps flowing freely through the supply line.
The person in charge reads instant consumption and the counters from the LCD — total fuel, total engine hours and hours in idle, optimal and overload modes — and records them in a ledger. Tampering attempts are logged and visible on the display. No tracker, no telematics subscription.
The counters were fitted on 16 tractors at the beginning of 2016. Fuel economy reached 20–30%, depending on tractor model and engine condition, and the meters paid back their purchase and installation in two months.
Task → Solution → Result
Unreliable level data
Fuel slosh on rough terrain made tank sensors useless for short-period consumption, and line theft went undetected.
Autonomous DFM counters
Battery-powered flow meters with LCD counters — no tracker or subscription needed.
20–30% fuel economy
16 tractors, payback in two months.
We receive data on real fuel consumption after the flow meters were installed on MTZ and John Deere tractors. Now we can optimize fuel costs and as result – increase our profitability. … We are planning to install DFM fuel flow meters on other tractors and machines in our company fleet.
Vladimir Gavrush · Director, “Mir” agricultural company
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