Maretron Fuel flow for MAN D2848LE403?

I have never had good luck with floscans working properly. Every yacht I've run with them, one of them was always not reading anything. Honestly, I'd just print out a fuel burn chart for the MAN's and provided your propped for 2300 rpms, the chart is pretty darn accurate.

Have only had my boat since Feb 22', but the FloScans have been perfect. Helps me find most economical cruise based on load: Heavy island run or light day trip, etc.

CR, no such thing as a computer of any kind, on the specific MANs in the thread title.
They are the very last 100% mechanical model, and by 100% I mean to the point that in the event of a catastrophic electrical fault your only problem is that you would have no way to turn them off, unless you know how to reach the stop solenoid (which is indeed somewhat hidden!), and push it by hand.

I know for sure because they are the very same engines powering my own boat.
In fact, I also considered retrofitting a fuel flow system of some kind, but the range of my boat is much more than enough for my boating habits, so eventually I though to use the money for some good wine, and just do what CJ suggested.
BTW, I often cross-check the fuel burn chart with the actual consumption, since I have pretty accurate sight gauges, and I can confirm that the results are remarkably consistent.

That said, a fuel flow system would be nice also as a sort of "real time diagnostic", i.e. for a bit of fine tuning on cruising speed and flaps position.
Or for monitoring the effect of fouling progressively worsening through the boating season.
But sorry MC02020, I can't tell you if the Maretron stuff would be fine for our engines.
Actually, I'll be interested to follow this thread, because I might reconsider my "keep it simple" initial approach, if anyone could confirm that the thing works well...

Yeah, I can see why these days you would think of MANs as electronic, common rail engines.
But they were still selling real mechanical ones up to the mid noughties.
The V8 was the last block to be computerized, initially going from 800hp mechanic to 900hp common rail.
One or two years earlier, they had already made the EDC versions of the V10 (from 820 to 1050) and of the V12 (from 1100 to 1300), but these didn't last long, and eventually all of them got the common rail treatment.

'Fiuaskme, I really like my old school blocks, and I hope they will outlive me.
Sure, the MMDS display of the electronic ones is nice (when it works!), and gives plenty of useful data.
But the simplicity and reliability of all-mechanic injection is priceless.

I was considering installing flow meters as well, on mechanical Cummins 6CTA8.3's. Here are some considerations, especially if optimizing cost. Most popular are Maretron or DFM meters (the last one is a Belorussian company with decent prices, https://jv-technoton.com/products/dfm-d/). You definitely want to connect to your chart plotter to be able to do averaging and range calculations. Instantaneous flow is not that useful.

The biggest drawback is that these devices restrict the flow and some engines do not like this. One idea is to purchase and install the device, then measure fuel flow in different conditions, loads and create a chart that links to the rpm's, then uninstall the device (and send to the next forum member who wants to do the same).

Other ways to go is to use your current tank meter but instead of reading the analog dial, just measure the resistance, typically it is 0-90 ohms in Europe. This will give you a fairly good resolution from which you can create a chart for your tank shape and measure consumed fuel down to 1% accuracy which will give you plenty of information. I am not sure if this is better than sight tubes though. Both have a problem with the trim of the boat and the wave action, thus you need to average.

Lastly, you can build a device yourself, you can get gear flow meters from Amazon for $50 a piece, then a differential measuring device for about $300. You need to install four meters for the two engines and then connect them to the differential measuring display. Next you need to calibrate them taking note than the return line is typically at a much higher temperature (ideally you want to measure the temperature of the return fuel after a typical 1 hour run). It seems too much work at first but it is cheaper. Figure $500 for building a system from scratch, $1,500 for the DFM and $3,000 for Maretron (dual engine installs)... or just use the ohm meter.

I've had good results with the FloScans. They're off a bit, but measurably so, and once that's factored in, they've been quite useful. They also have a NMAE output available (reviewed but not yet pursued) that reportedly works well for interfacing, but in doing so you lose the FloScan display itself, all data going to the output. I'm on the edge, and I may eventually go there just to have the data more readily available throughout the boat.

Has anyone installed the maretron on the CR electronic versions? I have 04 CR900's would love to hook the MMDS data from the displays into our new Furuno TZT3. No one can tell me if my engines communicate in J1939 protocol and that is key if using maretron. Every time I get close to starting this project something else breaks on the boat so it gets put on the back burner.

No first hand experience, but according to the attached document they do.
Mind, in your boots I'm not sure I'd want to fiddle with any electronic component of CR engines, 'cause there's already enough that can go wrong, without adding other bits.
BTW, your MMDS displays can already show the real time fuel burn, so I struggle to see any meaningful advantage of the integration with other MFDs.
When dealing with boats, the old saying "If it ain't broke don't fix it" is always your best guiding light...!

My screens are close to going out and would be nice to see all the data on new 16" furuno displays. Also the MFD will keep track of total fuel burn which the MMDS does not do to my knowledge

Ok, then you can check out your options on the file I previously attached, but in principle the possibility is there.
Mind, unless you are quite familiar with these technicalities, you might need to involve someone who is.
Good luck, and keep us posted on the result!

Your displays will show a lot more critical data than a Furuno is capable of showing you. Fix them. Max Marine electronics can fix them.

Just for sake of clarity, in my previous post I assumed that you would have kept the Böning displays in good working order regardless of the Furuno MFDs connection.
In fact, I appreciate that it might be nice to feed the engine monitoring data on the large screens, and also keep track of total fuel burn, but I wouldn't rely on them alone, anyhow.
I even suspect (though I'm not positive about this) that you actually NEED a working MMDS display to interface any other J1939 devices to the engine.

I meant to ask earlier but I forgot: are the other boat faults you had to deal with somehow engine-related?
I'm asking because my engines are the same as yours, just in the very last mechanical version (800hp) before the CR conversion.
So, I'm curious to hear about any troubles you might have had with them - particularly if not CR-related.

Max marine sold the repair side of the company to Sea-tronics they can fix each display $1800 per unit. Also talked with maretron if I have a J1939 cable (per the above pdf) in the MMDS their J2k100 gateway will work....mapism no engine issues, we had a fresh water leak and some other non engine related issues