If graphing, say, wind speed or depth data on a little Garmin GMI 10 is useful -- which it is -- how about visualizing every desired vessel sensor trend on a big monitor? Krill Systems has been showing off demo screens like the one captured above and intends to include the feature in a coming update of its SoftDisplay. And Krill has kept past promises...
While these screenshots (click'em for full size) are spectacular examples of what Maretron's new system monitors can do, they are also a bit deceptive. That's because the underlying sensor technology can scale to much more modest yachts, which don't need a PC monitoring program like N2KView to use it. For instance the RIM100, or Run Indicator Module, is a little black box that can watch up to six AC or DC circuits, like the nav lights above, and report whether current is running through them, via standard NMEA 2000 messages...
OK, it's not NMEA 2000, not color, and not touchscreen--kinda homely really--but I'm liking the new Blue Sea DC/AC/tank/bilge monitor. Actually I'm a long-time Blue Sea fan; my experience with their electrical products is that they're well designed, and well made for the money, and that the various collaterals--brochures, manuals, and Web site--are all nicely done and highly informative. The same seems true of the company's first venture from electrical to electronic...
Congratulations to Navionics for winning the DAME Design Award (marine-related software category) with Navionics Mobile. And it turns out there’s going to be more to this product than I first understood. In addition to large portfolios of vector charts to run in iNavX, Navionics will also offer a free viewer and inexpensive small area charts. In fact there’s already a preview of Navionics Viewer in the Apple Apps Store. It includes impressively detailed sample cartography of the area around Genoa, Italy, which is how I took the screen shot above, full size here (but it still takes Google Maps to see the hotel pool I once swam in ;-). Zooming and panning are reasonably quick on my iPod Touch, and I look forward to seeing the finished app. There’s no end to the iPhone effect.
Finessing the MerCruiser Axius joystick is Amanda Marsten, who probably never foresaw this as part of her gig at the PR firm Rushton Gregory. But she brought the perfect blend of boating inexperience and a light touch to the job, and in truth handled the Sea Ray more deftly than some of us old coots who were aboard for the FLIBS demo. Close quarters maneuvering with Axius is truly intuitive, even when you face aft, and switching from regular controls to joystick is as simple as putting the shifts in neutral and grabbing the stick (or vice versa). But this, mind you, was not just the Axius control system Mercury introduced last February, but rather the new Premier version (which so far is pretty invisible online)…
Lowrance’s LMF-400 is one impressive NMEA 2000 gauge, and I should have included it in my N2K instrument round up. On the above “fuel management” screen it’s totaling the flows of the two FloScan FloNets and calculating nm/gal using boat speed, while also showing the tank level % from a Maretron adaptor. You can easily change the data fields or build a custom screen showing from one to four data types—either virtual needle style or numeric—and thus monitor individual engine flows (good for catching mechanical problems), fuel used by trip or season, remaining fuel, and range. You can also choose data sources, set up your engine/tank configuration, and calibrate Lowrance fluid level and gasoline flow sensors with the LMF-400; it’s quite visible in sunny conditions; and the little devil can be had for about $120, only $40 more with a flow sensor. In short, it does everything you could want in fuel management, inexpensively (see way below for more details).
Mad Mariner just polled 400 U.S. boat owners about how they’re handling goosed up fuel prices, and the results are depressing. Though not terribly surprising, which is why I’ve gotten so keen on fuel management (part four is here, and you can work back). Actually it was years ago that I first saw the benefits of combining a simple gasoline flow meter with a GPS and software able to do calculations like miles per gallon, using Navman gear with the 250hp Volvo I/O on Ralph (still for sale, make an offer!). I could see the most economical spots in the boat’s power curve, and I could see them change with weight, sea state and other factors. I’m not sure I ever got it perfectly calibrated, so the numbers shown above may be inaccurate, but in terms of relative nm/g—and sweet spots—that’s not critical. And of course the subtleties are at least twice as important wallet-wise as they were in 2002, when I took the picture above.
Remember Maretron’s N2KView? I tried the initial version last fall, and later wrote a column about the whole concept of packetizing NMEA 2000 data. Recently I’ve been testing Version 2.0 and can tell you that it’s faster, prettier, and more configurable—better in every way. Perhaps more important, though, is Maretron’s recent decision to position the original $2,995 product—which can or will eventually control switches, take action on alarms, handle cameras, etc.—as the Platinum version, and offer a Standard view-the-data-anywhere version for $995 (as explained in this PDF).
Demonstrated at the Miami Boat Show, and scheduled to ship this Fall, Yanmar’s Smart Check looks like a gem of an engine monitoring system. You will need to have one or more Yanmar diesels with electronic interfaces and a NMEA 2000 connection to a Raymarine E-120, plus about $800 for the software (loaded into the E from a CF card), but, wow, you even get detailed alarms with trouble-shooting suggestions, and a maintenance log with reminders. And of course the gauges are complete and handsome, as you can see in this press release. But I want to focus on Smart Check’s fuel management features, which are the most sophisticated I’ve seen so far.
Consider this test a work in progress! (Bigger photo here.) Those are two FloNet N2K interface boxes that FloScan loaned me with built-in simulation of something like a big sportfishing boat blasting along on a plane. I can modify the simulated flow value somewhat using the calibration controls built into the box, which also has an “instance” switch so that the left one (instance 0) is set up as as the port engine and the right one (instance 1) represents the starboard engine. As noted on first sight, FloScan has designed this adaptor so that a special display is not needed to manage all its calibration and flow meter diagnostics; all you need is a display that understands what to do with a fuel flow message(s). Well, easier said than done, particularly when you throw twin flow values at those displays first, and read the manuals later!
