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Converting to maretron digital gauges and power flow

Discussion in 'Electronics' started by Matt46post, Nov 19, 2019.

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  1. Matt46post

    Matt46post Senior Member

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    Location:
    El dorado hills california
    Hi
    Has anybody converted there generator gauges to nmea 2000? I believe with all stuff maretron offers you can also monitor the current and fuel flows, I have a 20 year old westerbeke 20kw Beda
    Best regards
    Matt
  2. Capt Ralph

    Capt Ralph Senior Member

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    Matt
    I don't want to bad mouth your 20 year old westerbeke gen-set so I'll just remind you; It's a 20 year old westerbeke gen-set.
    Northern Lights, OhNo and others are already pushing out the door nmea2k ready gen-sets.
    The new sets are not suspect to roll over the day after any upgrade has been preformed.

    With that said, I look forward to new comments and new device budgets to answer your post.
    I have often thought about updating my 41 year old main engines and 12&15 year old generators.
    :rolleyes::rolleyes:
  3. cleanslate

    cleanslate Senior Member

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    Darn if I know what nmea 2000 is, and I really don't want to know. But my 2016 Phasor 8kw pancake gen-set has one gauge , an hour meter. That's it. That's how it came from Phasor to me. All it does is keep on running and putting out electric. It makes me happy. I guess I could put on oil and water gauges. But that is low on my list of things to do.
    Be happy your 20 year old gen-set is plugging along, keeping the boats AC stuff up and running. I would not mess with what you have got. We all have plenty of other things to tackle on our boats, right?

    National Marine Equipment Association?...I took a guess.
  4. Capt Ralph

    Capt Ralph Senior Member

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    The National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) is a US-based marine electronics trade organization setting standards of communication between marine electronics
  5. Capt Ralph

    Capt Ralph Senior Member

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    Based on CanBus J1939 It is to be a faster standard communications between electronic devices.
    Cars, Trucks and ECMs talk N2K, Now your fish finder and plotter talk to each other using the replacement for NMEA183.
    This and 2 bux may get you a cup of coffee in some places.
  6. Capt Ralph

    Capt Ralph Senior Member

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    The OP, Matt would be interested in it because it offers digital signal processing and the receiver may offer an endless log. Newer J1939 CanBus offers the gen-set to be started correctly by an inverter with batteries getting low and turning the gen-set off when the inverter batteries are charged. DCv remote load managment and some solar management. Not much to write home about,,, yet.
    Soon, like your new car with tail lights on the bus, your ships nav lights will be on CanBus power management.

    If your a ProBoat Reader, a few months ago a bug was in a snailing super yacht with hydraulic everything. Some N2K signal was getting dropped on some noisy wires that controlled all the hydraulic everything's and a sail was not deploying correctly. Ahhh.
    Big science to find the bug. OTOH, for half a cup of coffee I'd go up on their deck a flip a switch and watch the thing work. Oh Well.

    It's coming to a boat near you soon. Glad I'm back up-river.
  7. Pascal

    Pascal Senior Member

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    I m not sure I see the point. Fuel Flow on a genny doesn’t vary much and can pretty much be guesstimated fairly accurately. That s how I do it and when i refuel even after 300 hours or more I m within 3% of the pump reading

    oil press and Coolant temp are important to monitor and to troubleshoot a shut down. Do they need to be networked and monitored constantly? Not sure it s that critical.

    We have two Ohno 27.5 on the boat I run linked to the central monitoring system. I can’t say I ever look at the readings. The only time I do is when the darn Ohno OP sensor starts getting flaky and triggers a low press alarm. Usually at 3 am when I m asleep :(
  8. Capt Ralph

    Capt Ralph Senior Member

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    Hate it when that happens.:mad::mad:
  9. Capt J

    Capt J Senior Member

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    I wouldn't bother spending the money putting that on a 20 year old Westerbeke generator. Fuel flow is about 1 GPH on a 20 kw on a 24 hour basis.
  10. Trak

    Trak Member

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    I thought about this as well. I think a more affordable way to do this is with an Actisense EMU-1. It will monitor 2 engines data. It can be wired into existing sensors and gauges and calibrated accordingly. Pressure, temp, rpm, fluid level can be monitored. I believe a NGT-1 is required for the PC based configuration tool. Hooks up into your N2k backbone and data can be read from mfds.
  11. Donzi 54

    Donzi 54 Member

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    Have you actually found a full package kit to do so? What did you find?
  12. Oscarvan

    Oscarvan Senior Member

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    To put the future of yachts into perspective.... All of the new diesel pushers from Forest River are now fully CAN-bus. And I'm talking about the house, the Freightliner chassis has been that way for years. There's a Precision Plex brand iPad camouflaged in a pretty frame on the wall that controls heating, cooling, electrics, tank monitors, awnings, slides. ALL the lighting switches talk to the brain....... You can also control it all from your smart phone.

    I will spare you the growing pains I've observed. Fortunately my 2017-1/2 is the last of the steam coaches.
  13. v10builder1

    v10builder1 Senior Member

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    We have an EMU-1 on Altamira installed 2014. Has always worked great since initial configuration tasks - NOT located in engine space. Engine is single 1988 Cummins 6BT-5.9. EMU-1 monitors engine RPM (tach signal from alternator), oil pressure, engine temperature, piggy-backed on existing gauges, retained and operating. Monitors 4 fuel tank level senders. N2K network has Simrad MFD and Simrad autopilot with N2K rate compass and 2 AP-24 controllers. Network also has Maretron DS-150 display, (2nd) Marerton GPS, Maretron temperature input module (monitors wet exhaust temperature) and Mareton relay output module. All talk/work perfect on n2K network. NGT-1 and a WIN10 laptop required - all needed software was no cost. Maretron has engine modules for later Cummins (and other engines) that condition the J-19.. signals from engines and add addressing to be N2K compliant. Fuel level is displayed on the Maretron DS-150 and the Simrad MFD. All the N2K devices figure out how to work with one another when the devices/network are powered up, but you do need to pay particular attention to connector differences between brands, adapter cables, and to network cable junction boxes and end terminations. Actisense has some nice boxes and so does simrad. You do need a good tech if you don't want to go too deep yourself. I'm a retired electrical engineer and I got through it with no big problems and a bit of time spent.