NMEA 2K link for Volvo....question:

[svbravo]

Question re: Volvo Penta NMEA2000 gateway.

System: We have the Volvo NMEA2K gateway connected to our new D2-75 engine. Our engine start battery is shared by the windlass. Controlled by a relay, the windlass only operates when the engine is running. All good, so far.....

The problem is when hauling up the anchor, with the engine idling slowly forward, the way we typically do it, the NMEA Gateway transmits a "low start battery voltage" sentence to the NMEA backbone. This in turn sounds the alarm on our Furuno MFD. Very annoying! If I put the engine in neutral and goose the alternator revs, the alarm stops, but then, of course, I'm in neutral, and not using the engine to move forward to the anchor.

Is there any way to disable this sentence of the VP NMEA 2K Gateway? (I have plenty of redundant battery monitoring systems on the boat).

Thanks.

[DougR]

The low voltage alarm is being generated by the MDI system on the engine, and transmitted to your MFD via the NMEA gateway.

Within the VP system there are two parts to the alarm: the visual indication that you see within the tach LED window, and the audible alarm that you hear. I don’t know if you can disable the alarm or not, but you can acknowledge the alarm and that will turn off the audible portion so the noise from the VP alarm won’t bother you. To acknowledge the alarm, press the multifunction button ( lower left) on the engine button panel.

Whether or not this will also control the audible alarm coming from the MFD, I don’t know.....worth a try. Perhaps that can be controlled in the MFD setup menu.

Or I guess you could drive the windless from the house battery bank...

[ohthetrees]

Bit of a tangent, but what data gets transmitted to the NMEA network? I'm particularly interested in temperature and oil pressure. I'm not able to tell from the documentation whether it merely alerts for out-of-spec temps and pressures, or whether it reports temp and pressure values when operating normally. Thanks!

[svbravo]

OTT, our VP link only transmits sentences for rpm, coolant temp, and hours. I wish it gave oil pressure as well, but I’m led to believe that this may require an additional sender and nmea2k connection to the backbone. To be confirmed …..

[ohthetrees]

Originally Posted by svbravo

OTT, our VP link only transmits sentences for rpm, coolant temp, and hours. I wish it gave oil pressure as well, but I’m led to believe that this may require an additional sender and nmea2k connection to the backbone. To be confirmed …..

Thanks for that! Considering it anyway, just so I can monitor temperatures. If you ever figure out oil pressure, please update this thread!

[svbravo]

Will do. And if anyone else knows the easiest way to get oil pressure data on nmea2k, I’m all ears. I assume it would require replacing or adding a different sender than the idiot alarm Volvo sender? As well as a box to get it on the buss, like one by Actisense or Maretron.

[DougR]

Correct....the V.P. MDI system was not built with the capacity to handle oil pressure info, and as you have surmised there is no oil pressure sender on the engine to provide the info anyway.

You will need to add a sender to the engine oil pressure circuit and a gateway to get the info into the NMEA 2000 bus.

[svbravo]

Thanks Doug. That’s what I expected. I’ll look at adding a tee to the oil pressure sender port so I can keep the old one to keep the damn MDI happy while adding a 2nd for a proper gauge. Wouldn’t even need to be on Nmea2k buss, just provide an old school VDO gauge!