How to tell if my Mercruiser supports NMEA 0183 or 2000 or nothing

S

sline

New Member
Apr 26, 2015
23
Chattanooga, TN
Boat Info
2001 Sea Ray 290 Sundancer
Engines
Twin 2001 Mercruiser 5.0L EFI's
Hi -

I have a 2001 Sea Ray 290 Sundancer and am considering getting a chartplotter with engine data displays. My analog gauges are not agreeing with each other (i have twin engines) so I am hoping digital outputs from the engine would provide more reliable info.

My engines are 2001 Mercruiser 5.0L EFI's, and the serial numbers are 0L698318 and 0L698306. How do I tell if they are NMEA compliant, and what level of NMEA compliance they have?

Thanks!
Steve
 
Cant answer that question other than with an "I doubt it." My engines are 2007 and in order for them to be NMEA2000 compatible I had to purchase the "Mercruiser Gateway," a $700 gadget that takes smartcraft data from the ECM and converts it to NMEA2000. You can certainly call Mercury Marina and ask them for a more definitive answer.
 
Thanks Rondds. I called my dealer to ask about this, not much help. Then I called West Marine and they were a little more help, but they referred me to Mercury who was helpful. Bad news is the smartcraft system came out later in 2001 than my engines were built. My engines have a controller called MEFI which was built by GM. Later in 2001 MerCruiser started using the ECM 555 controller which uses smartcraft technology.

So I'm out of luck. If your engines use the ECM 555 or later controller (PCM 09 or PCM 112) then you can use the Smartcraft Gateway Monitor and get NMEA 2000 data. Another way to tell is if your engine serial number is 0M300000 or above then it should support smartcraft data.

When I got my boat survey done, the surveyor plugged his computer into a diagnostics plug on my engine and it showed all kinds of data like fuel consumption, rpm, and much more. I wish there was something that could plug into that plug and give me that digital data in the cockpit.

Steve
 
Last edited:
Steve
This might be what you want, though you'd likely have to hook up to a computer, rather than be able to view on a display at the helm.

http://www.rinda.com/marine/diacommarine.htm

click on the LEARN MORE tab at the lower right and check to see if your engine is compatible. There's also a phone number you can call. They are very helpful too - I've called them a few times.
 
Yes :) that is the software my surveyor used. After getting my bad news from Mercury, I called Rinda to see if they had or knew of somebody that had an interface module I could buy, considering they have already built that interface. No luck.

One option is to build one myself, my background is EE and software. Even so it sounds like a lot of work as I've done way more software than EE.

Another option is I could buy their software and connector and connect it up to the engines once in a while when I want to look into an issue.

In the mean time looks like I'll have to get my analog gauges working ...
 
All that stuff is VERY expensive regardless of which way you go with Merc. IMO, Merc screwed the consumer with their proprietary software. It was late out of the box and did crap(when it worked) the average boater does not need. Others saw the writing on the wall and went to NMEA 2K directly.

The digital dash is here in larger boats. Trickle down tells me it won't be long before we see it in smaller boats. The one's I've seen are NMEA 2K compliant.

If you could build a plug and play box that converted Smartcraft to 2K and sell it for under $500 the boating world would beat a path to your door.
 
Definitely have to jump through hoops to get dopey smartcraft to convert to NMEA2k. All these gadgets seen below and the wiring harness that leads from each engine to each J-box. Coming out of the Gateway is a NMEA2k plug - the rest of the wiring is easy as pie. Leave it to Merc to complicate and confound things. Or maybe they're smart as a fox - cost me a bundle to buy all this crap!

Gatewaylabelled_zpsba1d046e.jpg
 
Holy crap your picture shows a lot of gadgetry. I'm new to boats (that is synonymous with "fixing boats") but I've spent a lot of time working on Japanese cars and motorcycles and the mercury doesn't seem nearly as well designed. ... but I digress.

Maybe it's good my engines don't support NMEA engine data. I should fix the analog gauges then spend my money on a kayak -- it will be a whole lot cheaper and a better workout.

Steve
 
Is that photo the setup you have on your 2008 mercruisers on the 2001 380 DA?
 
Yep. And your kayak idea makes a lot of sense!
 
Jonathan...for some reason SR uses a plastic box for the air condx pump connections and does it up in faux rust motif. Even had that on my '89 340DA. You prob have the same one. Where's the grease? ;-)

Why Rick, was that a compliment? ! Be still my beating heart!
 
Btw, credit to mistercomputerman, who patiently guided me through that install and guilted me into buying 17000 feet of loom. Would have never thought of that but it does make for a tidy install. Anyone need some loom?
 
Yeah he needed about 3.2 miles of the stuff.
 
He is full of crap. He got 100' online for less that 10' at West Marine. He'll be giving it away at Thanksgiving after he cuts it up into little pieces.
 
It was a good deal! Like on a gameshow..."lifetime supply."
 
After how many years of being on this forum you still don't get my humor? That was my way of saying your installation looks fabulous and is very clean :smt101. And yes I found out the hard way that that box is how is suppose to look. I tried to clean it once.
 
Oh I know you were messing around. But it's funny bc until I had to change the air condx pump on my previous boat, I thought that box was rusted! And I did think I missed a grease spot somewhere.
 
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