N2K Instrumentation - Part 3 Electronics Upgrade

dtfeld · Mar 22, 2020

I’ve made great progress towards upgrading the onboard electronics, adding a N2K network, and digitizing the engine instruments over the winter. Since Part 2 upgrade, I have Added the follow improvements with excellent results.

- Changed MFD from an a128 running LH2 to an Axiom 12 running LH3 with Quantum 2 Radar.

- Moved the Chetco Digital SeaGage G2 to the engine room, and moved to direct connection to the engine senders (from parallel with the existing gauges). This required switching out some senders for new VDO senders that Chetco had pre calibrated for, but made for quick and easy install.

- Added an N2K backbone. Used Ancor as I liked the connection were plastic (no rust) and color coded.

- Added Maretron TLM100 fuel senders and calibrated to my tank capacities. Did not install the focus tubes, as I don’t think I have room. As a result, senders are not as accurate while running, but seem dead on sitting at rest. This had the added benefit of freeing up 2 analog channels on the Chetco unit. I repurposed those channels to provide turbo boost.

- Added a Maretron DSM410 display. Started with 1 for testing, but so far, excellent addition. I’ll add a second when I finish up as this will require a new dash panel.

- Added a Fusion MS-AV755 and connected it to the N2K network. Controllable from the head unit and the Axiom.

Craig · Mar 22, 2020

Nice!

dtfeld · Apr 23, 2020

Finally dug the old fuel sender out of the port fuel tank and installed the second TLM-100. Both fuel tanks reading pretty accurately, including totalizer.

Riptide III · Apr 23, 2020

Not sure what language you were speaking, but it looks real cool!

Jeremygavin · Apr 23, 2020

Looks great. Nice work.

dtfeld · May 28, 2020

Starting to upgrade the upper dash panel were the Maretron displays will live. Pulled all the gauges last night, and just re installed them and left them behind the panel in case a future owner wants to revert to analog gauges. They can just live back there.

Brought the old panel home to use as a template. Cut the new material about 1/4" larger then the original, then screwed the 2 pieces together using the original screw mount holes, and used a 1/2' flush trim bit to trim it up and cut the center hole for the sync gauge.

Layout will be the Aetna tach's and the displays out board of the sync gauge.

Riptide III · May 29, 2020

Looks awesome. Where did you get the new material.

ttmott · May 29, 2020

Dave - looks great!
Make sure you take some sandpaper and smooth/radius the hole edges on the panel so there are no stress risers where cracking can start. Especially no sharp corners for the DSM's.
From the school of hard knocks....

dtfeld · May 29, 2020

Material purchased off Amazon. If you email the vendor, they will send out samples. A 4'X4' 3/16" pc was $75.

This is a black ABS and can't be used for backlighted applications. I believe you need clear or white for that.

dtfeld · May 29, 2020

Final product

dtfeld · May 30, 2020

Need to do a little finish trim, and bolt her down!

dtfeld · Jul 8, 2020

Final part of this install was to add EGT to the system. I used a Maretron TMP100 temperature monitoring unit mounted the engine room bulkhead and the 6' thermocouple leads were perfect length. EGT probes were mounted in the existing threaded port just behind the turbo exhaust outlet, so technically, I'm measuring the EGT temperature after the turbo. I've seen this refered to 'stack' temperature. At RPMs from 2300-2400, I'm reading right at 790-800 F and seems right in line with what other CAT 3126 powered 410's reported (Dominic added boost and EGT to Carter's former 410, so this is my reference).

As for temp limits, I'm making some assumptions, as I've never seen any EGT numbers published by CAT. Tony Athens has published that for most engines 800-825 F is very reasonable for longevity of modern diesels, so I've used these numbers as my guide and set the gauge limits as follow. Here's his take https://www.sbmar.com/articles/boost-egt-and-horsepower/.

Green Band 0-825 F
Yellow Band 825-900 F
Red Band 900F+

Running 2300 RPM at about 18-19 psi Boost and 790 F. 2350 produced 19-20 psi Boost and right at 800 F. I'll have to test at 2400 RPM and WOT to get a baseline. This was 3/4 water, 2/3 Fuel and just me on board.

Henry Boyd · Jul 8, 2020

Do the Maretron fuel senders require a Maretron display to calibrate or can it be done with the Fuel Management System app on the Axiom?

dtfeld · Jul 8, 2020

Henry Boyd said:
Do the Maretron fuel senders require a Maretron display to calibrate or can it be done with the Fuel Management System app on the Axiom?

They do require setup from a Maretron display or a USB --> N2K (USB100 in Maretron speak). For our boats with rectangular tanks, you only need to set the tank depth and capacity and it is calibrated. Only needs to be done once. I bought the USB module used on Ebay.

I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I added fuel the other day. I added 100 gallons and the tanks showed exactly 100 gallons added (40 in the port and 60 in the starboard). This matched the consumption I estimated based on running hours pretty closely as well.

While I like the Raymarine MFD/Radar set up, the data display (Dashboard) is pretty limited, hence the reason I opted for the Maretron displays. As of LHIII v3.11, fuel could only display in %. The Maretron can display a standard fuel gauge for each tank as well as Total Fuel (all tanks combined). Even nicer is the ability to display gallons remaining and Tank capacity. Makes deciding how much to add real easy.

One thing with Raymarine...they cannot display EGT. Do not have the PGN available.

When I get back to the boat, I'll post up some screen shots as I have the screens configured.

dtfeld · Jul 8, 2020

ttmott · Jul 8, 2020

dtfeld said:
They do require setup from a Maretron display or a USB --> N2K (USB100 in Maretron speak). For our boats with rectangular tanks, you only need to set the tank depth and capacity and it is calibrated. Only needs to be done once. I bought the USB module used on Ebay.

I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I added fuel the other day. I added 100 gallons and the tanks showed exactly 100 gallons added (40 in the port and 60 in the starboard). This matched the consumption I estimated based on running hours pretty closely as well.

While I like the Raymarine MFD/Radar set up, the data display (Dashboard) is pretty limited, hence the reason I opted for the Maretron displays. As of LHIII v3.11, fuel could only display in %. The Maretron can display a standard fuel gauge for each tank as well as Total Fuel (all tanks combined). Even nicer is the ability to display gallons remaining and Tank capacity. Makes deciding how much to add real easy.

One thing with Raymarine...they cannot display EGT. Do not have the PGN available.

When I get back to the boat, I'll post up some screen shots as I have the screens configured.

Dave - did you buy the N2Kview also? If not what are you using on your PC to program? It's a bit of a PIA to program through the DSM's; which is what I do....
Tom

dtfeld · Jul 8, 2020

ttmott said:
Dave - did you buy the N2Kview also? If not what are you using on your PC to program? It's a bit of a PIA to program through the DSM's; which is what I do....
Tom

Tom

I bought thinking I could program/backup the DSM's custom screens, but that is not the case. I also have to program the DSM's screens manually. It sucks because I had an issue with both of the DSM 410's I purchased (screens failed due to bad adhesive in the screen lens cover). Maretron replaced under warranty, but it takes a month of Sundays to reprogram.

I kept the USB for now and you can use the N2K Analyzer software (free) to set some values in things like the TLM100 and update firmware, although I don't see them updating firmware very often, if ever. It does allow me to see network traffic from all N2K attched devices, so it does have some diagnostic ability. If they came out with the ability to backup/restore the setup, or at least print out the settings, that would be a major improvement. I think they assume a one and done forever screen programming scenario.

If I didn't already own the USB100, I wouldn't buy one.

Henry Boyd · Jul 8, 2020

FYI, RM Recently updated the LH 3.11 software. I did the file download process, but understand the online method through the display (if your axiom has internet access) has been updated and some folks on THT have had success with it.

dtfeld · Jul 8, 2020

Henry Boyd said:
FYI, RM Recently updated the LH 3.11 software. I did the file download process, but understand the online method through the display (if your axiom has internet access) has been updated and some folks on THT have had success with it.

I installed 3.12 yesterday via network update. The biggest improvement is a night color pallet. I think its a major improvement, but haven't tried it at night yet. That should have been in the initial release.

I think there are some other improvements possibly with the Dashboard app? I didnt get a lot of time to try it out

Henry Boyd · Jul 8, 2020

The literature said improved gauges, but I couldn’t find anything significant. The big shortcoming for me is the inability to build a Diesel engine page. RM seemed to have focused the one and only engine page on outboard/sterndrive concepts.

N2K Instrumentation - Part 3 Electronics Upgrade

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