Category: Electrical & Engines
When Garmin recently introduced GNX20/21 displays, it led to questions about the power needs of similar but all-color NMEA 2000 instruments. And that led me to finally make up a special N2K cable that I can use with my trusty Power Analyzer Pro to measure the 12 volt current flow to an individual N2K-powered device. So what you’re seeing above is that a Raymarine i70 working with live data at 100% brightness level is using 0.13 amps. That’s not much by most standards, but dropping down a hair to 90% brightness reduced the power draw 20%…
The Garmin and Volvo Penta Glass Cockpit won a lot of awards and shook up the competitors. I think it’s why Raymarine rolled out its nifty-seeming ECI-100 so quickly and I suspect it motivated Mercury Marine to put together the clean “glass dash” above. The Simrad NSO evo2 driving those two MO19-T monitors is not only doing the boat’s CZone switching — even able to activate the four outboards — but its Mercury Vessel View app seemed a terrific interface to all those engines…
The photo could be sharper but I like it for two reasons. First, it’s confirmation that an ambitious product which doesn’t even have a manual yet actually works in the field. Second, it’s doing interesting work on an intriquing new vessel that has deep Panbot roots. You’ll learn much more about the boat on Febuary 4th when we celebrate Panbo’s 10th birthday, but today please say hello to the Victron Color Control GX…
I find Steve Dashew’s latest FPB 78 long-range powerboat design so intriguing that I won’t link to it until the end of this entry for fear of losing you! The relevant detail in the rendering above is Steve’s plan to occasionally use that giant 65-inch 4K resolution TV monitor so he can still see his radar and Maretron N2KView monitoring info as he moves about the vessel’s giant main cabin while underway. I got to spend time with the Dashews on their original FPB Windhorse, and it’s one heck of an equipment endorsement to be chosen for the next one. I also know that Steve’s expert evaluation of Maretron’s hardware and software systems came before the major and excellent-sounding N2KView product changes I’m about to outline…
When I first wrote about Maretron’s FFM100 fuel flow monitor, I was enthused about both its advanced sensor technology and the possibilities of a system designed from the ground up for NMEA 2000. Now that I’ve installed the system on Gizmo and tested it a bit underway (before the weather closed in), I’m even more impressed. But I have also learned how difficult it can be to accurately measure how much fuel a diesel actually uses in real time…
That’s a darn impressive photo, I think. When Gizmo was hauled on November 22, she hadn’t been out the water since May, 2012, and most of that copper-free Interlux Pacifica Plus bottom paint had already endured a seven-month test in 2011, as I wrote about then. So after more than three seasons, most of the running surfaces are still slick (and probably still self cleaning when the boat occaisionally goes fast). I did use the remains of the original two gallons to re-paint the belly band before the 2012 launch, Gizmo lay in cleansing Carolina fresh water from November that year thru May of this year, and I scrubbed the belly band from the tender last July. But notice how almost no barnacles or mussels — the critters that can really slow a boat down — adhered to the Pacifica Plus…
It’s great to test a device that promises to do something new and desirable for the good vessel Gizmo and find out that it installs fairly easily and works quite well. That Actisense EMU-1 is now converting the analog gauge data from the boat’s 14-year-old Volvo Penta diesel into NMEA 2000 messages that can displayed in multiple ways on most any MFD or instrument screen on board, and can also be custom alarmed and logged. I’m going to be better informed about my engine’s health and I’m going to gain some helm panel real estate for better uses than dumb analog guages…
I just spent five full days at IBEX 2013 — as press guy, Innovation Awards judge, and NMEA seminar presenter — and I’m heading home with LOTS to write about. I’ll start with the deep integration Garmin and Volvo Penta put into the handsome Glass Cockpit system I was checking out above, and how smartly Raymarine has responded to this market-share threat. In my view it’s happy story about how competition and technology are making boating better…
When I wrote about seeing the new Garmin 8000 Glass Helm series in Miami, several knowledgeable readers commented about how it would be used as part of a complete Volvo Penta engine/helm package. They were right. Garmin announced the VP Glass Cockpit yesterday and it’s already up in detail at Volvo Penta. The main features seem to be great nav screen integration with joystick, trim, and autopilot controls plus a single vendor for all, but is this also what we’re going to see from all the glass bridge/helm/cockpit systems?
In Miami Actuant Electrical invited a few boating writers like Ed Sherman, Steve D’Antonio and myself to tour several production boats that have chosen to use BEP CZone distributed power and digital switching systems. A highlight for me was getting to hear the founder of Scout Boats explain why he would do such a crazy thing. I joke of course — and there’s an argument that you have to be a little nuts to build boats anyway — but Steve Potts (seen to the right of BEP’s Jarrod Sagar above and interviewed here in Soundings) made a compelling case for why systems like CZone are critical to creating boats that truly satisfy modern customers…
