Hi Bill, 

I've always thought Furuno does a particularly nice job of displaying engine information on their FI70 gauges ( https://www.furunousa.com/en/products/fi70 ).  This comes with the bonus of single vendor between the displays and gauges, given the generational differences it's probably not very important but perhaps the symmetry will appeal  😉.  

I'd recommend taking a careful look at the screens and capabilities of the gauges before buying.  Most of the gauges are a good bit less configurable than an MFD running a gauge or data page.  

Ben

Yes, the FI-70 is interesting.  I'm less worried about symmetry than genuine functionality.  I don't mind that it has a different bezel, color or whatever.  But I respect that some folks might.  I've no brand loyalty here.  The boat currently has a mix of Furuno and B&G displays (two old H1000 and two new Triton2 displays).  I had Raymarine gear on my previous boat (and that had no engine support).  

The FI-70 is somewhat rigid in how the engine displays are setup.  I'd kinda prefer to have my own control over which data gets shown with an analog display.  

I happened to see a Simrad GO5 at a local West Marine and was intrigued at the possibilities.  It's overkill, of course, what with all the other features, but it has an engine page.  Trouble is the page seemed more about "looking pretty" than being genuinely readable when under way.   Even something like the old Raymarine a65 would be interesting.  Both of those push the limits on available size, but I'm willing to do "some" rejiggering of the helm but eventually it gets the point of requiring a complete refit.

Is there a way to post pix here?  If not, I've got some shots of the helm here.  The lower station is a lot easier to change as it's just a sheet of ply with formica.  The upper would involve a bit of fiberglass.  If I need to change the upper then I get closer to considering larger refit scenarios.

Anyone used the Maretron DSM410?  That seems to have a pretty decent range of section options that can be configured.

Bill, the Maretron DSM series is HIGHLY configurable and may be just what you're looking for. For almost any value on your N2K network, you can set up a custom-range analog gauge with high and/or low alert/alarm (yellow/red) bands. Or a custom line graph, or just the number (round or precise).

The data windows -- choice of 1 to 4 per screen -- can also have custom labels, though entering those on a DSM is painful. But it can also be done with a keyboard if you have the Maretron USB100 bridge, which also means you'll get an N2KAnalyzer view of your network and easy Maretron device updating.

The DSM can auto rotate screens if you want, or even just a subset of the screens you can access manually. Also, once you have one DSM set up the way you want, you can push its configuration to other DSM's on the network (including the virtual one you can configure with N2KAnalyzer).

But as good as the data display configuration is, perhaps the highlight of the Maretron DSM world is that you can set custom alerts and alarms on any data value, and they can even be enabled/disabled in one or more of three mode groups, like Underway, Moored, etc. If you get these right -- and each alarm has loads of parameters -- the displays become more of a reference than a requirement.

By the way, I have each of three DSM models on Gizmo, use them a lot, and the 410 is particularly nice for its cost. I wish that the other N2K instruments and MFDs I'm testing could configure and alarm the data as well, as I have written...

https://panbo.com/mfd-engine-monitoring-better-but/

...but that's been slow going.

Good to know somebody's had real world success with them. I hate buying gadgets only to find out they really don't quite live up to the marketing hype.

Any other candidates worth considering?

I should start by mentioning up front that Ben E. has much more hands-on experience with these devices than I do.  With that caveat out there, the one thing I've noticed about the DSM series of displays, like many other gauge form factor displays, is that the presentation of data is very basic.  Though the gauge ranges and labels can be customized, the basic layouts (I believe) can't.  From my understanding, you're limited to one, two three or four-up gauges or text.  I believe the full range of options can be seen in the screenshots tab of the product info for the DSM-410 at Maretron's site:  https://www.maretron.com/products/dsm410.php .  That said, as Ben notes, Maretron's alarming capabilities are second to none.  And, for engine monitoring, that shouldn't be undervalued.  

Ben

There's always so many compromises with displays, isn't there?

That and a lot of the vendor web sites and even their PDF manuals don't show a full range of what's possible. And then the boat show booths don't always have enough sensors or demo modes to show you how things are really going to work. It's kind of frustrating.

I've been following panbo for more than a decade now,  and I'm grateful how many experiences Ben has shared with us.

I agree with both Bens about the displays - they vary widely in what they display and the level of detail for specific screens. I have the DSM 250 and DSM 410 and those are my go-to devices for all types of data. I have customized screens for wind, engine, tank, and energy/electrical that you can't really get on any other displays. Being able to put very specific bits of data in a page of gauges, split 4 way data, one big graph, or a multitude of other options is great.

I also have the Raymarine i70s, B&G Triton, Garmin, and a few others and their displays for very specific things are far better designed from the user experience side of things. As an example, the wind data display on the B&G is far better than any other instrument I've seen - combining so much data in one place. Whereas the DSM 410 can display a gauge of wind speed and direction - a lot more limited. But, most of these are not configurable or changeable - they are pre-built and cannot be changed at all.

Engine data is one of those that has been really hit-or-miss for me. I prefer the Maretron for this but the Furuno is also pretty nice too.

Thanks Steve, you're right, some of the function-specific screens are quite a lot better on some displays than others.  I'm putting this into a powerboat so I have less need for sailing-specific stuff.  And with two 12" chart plotters next to each other I'm reasonably well covered for most other course-related info (cog, sog, xte, etc).  Unfortunately the plotters are old enough (Furuno Navnet 3D) that they won't show engine data. Which isn't a big deal as I've preferred having engine data on dedicated gauges, ones that won't get 'paged away' for something else.  I'm going to get a DSM410 and see how it performs.