Electronics

Doing your dash

It's my great belief that all things marine have a life expectancy of about 20 years before they start to break or wear out. While I dearly adore my 1982 model Mariner 43, which I have owned for four years now, many of her electrical components and wiring needed upgrading or replacing. Much of that has to do with general maintenance, but probably more of it has to do with my desire to have new-tech systems and equipment aboard.

Having now been through the upgrading process, it's my belief that electronic dashboards, which replace the old analogue dials and gauges found on many boats, will be the new retrofit must-have in the next few years. The reason for that is that manufacturers are developing displays and electronic interfaces that work with the older engine's analogue senders.

Why upgrade your engine gauges? Owners of older boats know that analogue gauges take up lots of room, which leaves little space for modern-day electronics. Also, the connectors or bushes in the voltmeters or battery displays wear out; the lenses become crazed through years in the sun; and the alternator may not be producing a viable signal for the RPM gauge.

Then there is the fact that you are upgrading the interior of the boat and want that to include a new dashboard layout.  All these are valid reasons to look at new and better ways of displaying engine information. But how do you fit new gauges, what's available and what can we look forward to in the future? Read on.

THE NAVMAN (NORTHSTAR) SOLUTION
About four years ago, I decided to upgrade the dashboard on my Mariner 43. This involved cutting out the old fibreglass flybridge dash and installing a new top on it.  Digital display technology was in its infancy. However, Navman (now Northstar) had a 6600 model combo fishfinder/GPS equipped with diesel fuel sensors. This has proved to be a great unit and the fuel consumption statistics are dead accurate.

Apart from the fuel display, the Navman is connected to the house battery and shows voltage, and there is a phototach light sensor on each engine's crank providing accurate RPMs to within one RPM. The Navman also communicates with the autopilot and much of the above information is shown on the display via different screens.

So, in many ways, my little system of yesteryear was a forerunner for the newer digital displays being developed. But even now I really like what I have achieved and how the information is displayed. The ability to synchronise two cranky 12lt diesels using older control cables is fantastic.

In years to come, the old analogue gauges will be replaced by a digital display or the analogue senders will be able to interface to a digital GPS/fishfinder display. Hopefully, these displays will have enough capability to also show all the engine data, perhaps including gearbox oil pressure along with the more common oil pressure and engine temperature.

It's my guess that the electronics manufacturers such as Lowrance, Northstar, Garmin and Furuno will actively pursue development of engine and boat data on their displays, since as it makes such good sense. Hopefully, they look at the retrofit market, as there are far older boats requiring upgrades than newer boats being made!

The good news is that you can use the boat's existing sender wiring to the main unit. A built-in 85dBA alarm can be set for temperature and pressure using the PC programming interface. The other good thing about this is that you don't rely on the engine's 20-year-old temperature switch or oil pressure switch or alarm buzzer to sound the alert. At about $1200 per display this is a reasonably inexpensive way to go high tech without replacing your senders. For more information, visit www.cruzpro.com

Actisense is a UK manufacturer of marine networking systems. At the recent METS marine equipment trade show in Amsterdam, it displayed a NMEA0183 to NMEA2000 converter. This will make owners of recent systems happy, as their older NMEA0183 protocol equipment will now connect into the NMEA2000 backbone. Actisense also makes an analogue to NMEA2000 interface for depth transducers, allowing their information to be displayed on NMEA0183 chartplotters or radars.

Another product will take NMEA2000 information and display it on a PC using specialist display software. For more information, visit www.actisense.com

Newer main propulsion engines and generators from Caterpillar, Cummins, Volvo Penta and many others, output what's known as a J1939 signal standard covering engine temperature, oil pressure and RPM. In essence, any electrical unit that can read this output can display it.

Maretron is one marine data company that uses the new NMEA2000 communications protocol. I wrote about them last month. It will eventually provide the digital backbone of electronics in many new boats. This backbone will also connect depthsounders, autopilots, radar and GPS information. Look out for NMEA2000 products over the next year or so. It has a new product, EMS100, which takes information from analogue senders and converts it to NMEA2000. At present it's only available for Yanmar engines. For more information, visit www.maretron.com

My visit to METS late last year revealed another company offering tricky new electronic interfaces. Albatross is a Spanish company offering control systems for boats including engine, navigation, satellite GPS security and environmental data on a computer screen or even a Raymarine display.

Using the latest communications protocols these cutting-edge displays show all the functions and more needed on a modern day cruiser. There is no reason not to fit something like this when carrying out an extensive refit of a larger boat. Fore moer information, visit www.albatrosscontrol.com

JN Taylor is best known as the distributor of Furuno Products in Australia, but the company is also the local agent for Maretron and Actisense.

General manager of Fununo, Ben Mudd, says the latter two products bridge the gap between old and new gear using new NMEA2000 technologies to provide a seamless interface between different devices on your vessel.

"For the first time, you can consolidate all this information. It's awesome!" Mudd told Trade-a-Boat. For more information, visit www.furuno.com.au

FW Murphy produces a range of great displays such as the Helmview and Powerview 101 series. While they cannot connect to analogue engine senders directly, these are dedicated engine display systems.

The Helmview can also display NMEA2000 information and chartplotting on one of its screen displays. Hopefully this manufacturer will add its own analogue capability in the near future for the retrofit market.

Another interesting thing: Murphy produces a range of standard style analogue gauges that input electronic engine data. For more information, visit www.fwmurphy.com

Faria is another manufacturer producing a wide range of gauges. They have also made analogue style gauges that take the J1939 engine date and display it. For more information, visit www.faria-instruments.com

THE FUTURE DASH
From what I see of the present marketplace, Cruz Pro is the only manufacturer who has a ready solution for presenting analogue sender information on a digital display with alarms. Other manufacturers seem only to be interested in new-boat fitouts and have left the huge retrofit market mostly untouched.

Hopefully, 2009 will see several of these companies entering the retrofit market segment. There is also a huge market for an adaptor that will take inputs from say up to 20 analogue senders and convert this to either J1939 or NMEA2000 signal, especially if they leave it up to the end customer to connect the wiring to the sender. (If there is such a product please email me at admin@marinedirect.com.au as I have not been able to find it despite two overseas trade shows and months of looking at different products for this article.)

Further, electronics manufacturers such as Northstar, Lowrance, Garmin and Furuno, to name a few, need to develop screen displays that can adequately represent all the engine information from older senders or from new electronic engines and also output this information when required. To elaborate on this point, and as an example, my Navman 6600 displays rpm but cannot output this information to a repeater display. The newer Northstar software does not do this either.

Perhaps when NMEA2000 is the norm then such issues will be resolved.

The good news about all this is that these new technologies will develop quickly during 2009 and be available for both large and small boats before we know it. However you look at it, analogue or digital, it sure is an interesting time for bright ideas in the world of electronics.

* NMEA2000 is the new standard just released and it's fast finding its way into new products. It is a fully digital backbone allowing NMEA2000 devices to send and receive digital data at the same time, regardless of the brand or type of product.

* J1939 is the standard electronic signal output from newer electronic diesel and petrol engines.

* Analogue is an older-style transmission and display technology.

* Digital essentially meaning computer-style communications between devices.

LED LIGHTING UPDATE
I got so excited by my recent articles on interior lighting and the benefits of LEDs that I invested in 16 new LED interior lights for my Mariner 43. These have the equivalent output of about 10W per light. With all lights burning, the total energy consumption has gone from 16amp/h to about 1.6amp/h!

The downside is that I will need a few more LEDs around the main cabin. But in one swoop, I have been able to reduce my daily DC requirements from 170amp to 120amp per day. It also means the genset will run for two hours less per day using the 25amp battery charger. (This has now piqued my curiosity at how refrigeration consumption can be reduced. Stay tuned for that article.)

Recently, while in Brisbane, one of my suppliers showed me his latest range of LED lighting. There are new LED glowing handrails (like you see on swish Rivieras and Maritimos), courtesy lights, LED replacement globes for mastheads and navigation lights.

But perhaps the coolest of them all were high-output deck spotlights that only used 2amp DC each. Amazing. LED is really good technology that is going to have huge benefits for the marine industry.

BRIGHT IDEA!
If you own an older genset and your back is aching because you have to hold down the preheat button for one minute, consider a 30-second or one minute auto preheat switch available from your auto electrician. Simply replace your old preheat switch with this nice flashing unit and press it once. When the light goes out the preheat is completed and the glow plugs have been turned off.