Aftermarket fuel gauge
Help a brother out here. I see "linear" thrown around a lot referring to gauges sometimes. I "assume" that to mean that as the (lets say float arm on a fuel sender) moves from one extreme to another, that the resistance reading does not coincide with how the arm moves. So I guess if the Chrysler units are "non linear" I guess that means the sender would move the needle "more" or less" in different places of travel. Am I think right on that?
Yes. Linear would mean that between the limits of mechanical movement, which correspond with the resistive values for F and E, that a mechanically evenly divided movement would mean an evenly divided increase of resistance, and if the GAUGE response is also linear, then it would be so, as well
Maybe an easier example is older analog electrical meters of most types, like an analog VOM. If you are on a scale of 0-100V, then 50 V is 1/2 scale, and 25 V is 1/4 of the scale, etc.
There WERE electrical meters that were intentionally made non linear, LOL. Such as the old CD (Civil Defense) yellow radiation survey meters. These are essentially a high scale Geiger counter, designed to measure higher levels after "an attack." When "we" were kids starting out in ham radio a couple of us obtained some of these, and tried to use the meters for other purposes, and could NOT figure out why we could get no accuracy LOL
The retired Bird Colonel in the local radio club knew and explained to us.
On an unrelated note, he got to test fly some german aircraft that had been captured in WWII.. Now that he's gone, all that is lost. He never wrote a book.