Engine Gauges

[travellerw]

Originally Posted by allanbranch

I don't have a plotter but might add one, just bought the boat.

What plotter do you recommend?

Oh thats a loaded question that could take up many many posts..

Personally I chose B&G Zeus 2, but I have heard good things about Garmin. Raymarine uses proprietary connectors so I passed them over.

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by allanbranch

The gauges are currently in a state of "looking like someone hit them with a hammer", the senders might be toast as well. We'll find out soon.

The sensors are rather easy to test. The temperature and oil pressure sensors are resistance based and can be tested with an ohm meter. Disconnect the wire and measure the resistance between the wire post and ground. If it's zero the sensor is shorted and dead. If it's higher than 233 ohms it's fried. I suppose it's possible that there might be a failure mode that would give you a false reading, but the two most likely failures are a short (zero ohms) or an open connection (infinite ohms). Make sure you measure the correct sensor. My engine has both the gauge sensors and the idiot light switches. The normal state for the switches is open(infinite ohms) or closed (shorted to ground, zero ohms).

[ranger58sb]

CruzPro digital gauges are said to be compatible with all senders.


That worked out in our case for the coolant temp gauges; I was expecting we have Teleflex temp senders, but turns out they're VDO. I just needed to select the correct sender from the CruzPro menu.


-Chris

[Roy M]

Sorry folks, but I have to use this thread to send a pic to greatketch33 showing my oil pressure sender installation. I wish I could do this on a PM:

I later removed the oil filter from the standard position and installed a remote filter to make changes simpler and cleaner (3rd pic).

[Dockhead]

If you have an NMEA2000 network, you can also use the Maretron harness, and then display all your engine data on any MFD.

I do this (in addition to, not instead of the standard crappy gauges) and find it is really, really useful. I can display all the engine data in different places. Who spends much time at the helm? I display it at my scuttle where it can be seen from anywhere in the cockpit.

And I can display it at the nav table.

And you can set up alarms which will sound all over the network.

This is definitely the way to go if you have N2K and MFDs already -- all you need is the harness.

Maybe an excuse to go over to N2K if you haven't already.

Actisense also make one: EMU-1 - Actisense EMU-1 Engine Monitoring Unit - NMEA 2000 for only $414.95 !

Probably cheaper and just as good.

[Greatketch33]

Originally Posted by Roy M

Sorry folks, but I have to use this thread to send a pic to greatketch33 showing my oil pressure sender installation. I wish I could do this on a PM: I later removed the oil filter from the standard position and installed a remote filter to make changes simpler and cleaner (3rd pic).

Thank you, Roy.

Very impressive. Super clean and easy access.

I'll check out my GM20 to see about getting gauges connected.

My engine is vdrive; changing the oil filter is always a challenge with a mess.

[travellerw]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Actisense also make one: EMU-1 - Actisense EMU-1 Engine Monitoring Unit - NMEA 2000 for only $414.95 !

Probably cheaper and just as good.

The RS11 mentioned above is almost 1/2 the price of the Actisense and provides the same functionality. Just an FYI!

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by travellerw

The RS11 mentioned above is almost 1/2 the price of the Actisense and provides the same functionality. Just an FYI!

Thanks, hot tip!