T-Pain Is On A Boat: Re: [Electric Boats] Re-use of gauges

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Re: [Electric Boats] Re-use of gauges

One idea is to keep them. Most times people add GPS like a garmin. These gauges may be recommisioned or used in conjuction with sensors that attach to the senders.

I recently purchased a pontoon boat and found that fuel, speed can be used on a garmin gps 440X. By initiating the software features in the unit, you have 2 of everything

Rick

--- On Sat, 5/22/10, greenpjs04 <greenpjs@neo.rr.com> wrote:

From: greenpjs04 <greenpjs@neo.rr.com>
Subject: [Electric Boats] Re-use of gauges
To: electricboats@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, May 22, 2010, 9:57 AM

After removing the 40 hp mercury engine from my pontoon boat and replacing it with a Torqeedo, I find myself with three perfectly good gauges on the console that do nothing. Does anyone have any good ideas for using them in some useful way?

The volt meter is easiest. I connected it to the separate 12 volt battery I use for the navigation lights and horn.

The fuel gauge is next. I thought about recommissioning it as a volt meter for the 48 volt pack. I could create a set-up that causes it to go from empty to full as the battery bank goes from 48 to 51 volts (or whatever the right numbers are).

The third gauge is a tach. It would be nice if it could measure prop rpm's, but I can't think of any easy way sense that.

Any ideas for using the current gauges or replacing them with other gauges of the same size? (The tach uses a 3-3/8" hole while the other two use 2-1/8" holes).

Thanks,
Pat