gauges

[surestrike]

hi have a 2013 df150 4 stroke I have had problems with the gauges
a suzuki modular smis 2" & 4" these have been a problem from day one ,2 Suzuki dealers have had a go with on luck, i have had a look myself and found there is a cable that goes to the loom 1 shielded cable goes to the earth board the red cable with fuse (this has a earth fuse in it !!!) goes to a grey + red-green combination .
question; it seems strange to me that a red wire would have a earth fuse can anyone help with an answer

[Moonlighter]

I cannot figure out what the problem is that you are having. I can tell you are frustrated, and yes, some dealers just don't understand that these gauges are nothing like the standard analogue gauges, but truly, they are not very hard to figure out.

Firstly, have you got the owners manual for the gauges and do you understand that they only work when connected to a NMEA2000 network?

Then, please tell us what is happening or not happening, and I will try to help you. Several of us here have quite a bit if experience with them and if you spell things out calmly and clearly, I am confident that we have a good chance of sorting your issues out.

[surestrike]

gauges

thanks guys
yes I do have the manuals for the gauges.
my system consists of a lowrance hds-8 sonar gps plus a structure scan from which my gauges are hooked into plus a Suzuki fluid level sensor
for a start I am not that tech minded but I usually get there in the end, so here goes, can get most of the page on the 4" but not engine hours (the engine hours did come up when the motor had reached 19. 3 hours )disappear after the service and the alarm was reset, it will show fuel remaining ,fuel range, fuel flow, economy and distance but no fuel tank level . I did disconnect the wiring and reconfigured engine tank.

I hope this makes sense to you and you can help, and yes I am frustrated there are a couple of other words that come to mind I could use
surestrike

ps what about the earth fuse

[Moonlighter]

Ok, that is helpful. We now know why you are pulling your hair out!

Just to be 100% sure, are these the gauges we are talking about? Please confirm. If not, please post a link to the ones you have.

Suzuki Outboard - 990C0-88161 - 4 in. Multi-Function Gauge

Next, lets check a couple of things.

On your Lowrance HDS, go to the pages button and select the "info" page. This should get you to a page that looks like a virtual engine dashboard. Then, with the engine key turned on (where it beeps), the gauges should become active (not greyed out) and show voltage etc. if you put the engine on the muffs and start it up, the same data shown on the SmIS gauges will be able to be shown on the Lowrance on these pages. Simultaneously.

Now, on that page, does it show engine hours? If it is not one of the pre-set data items, use the arrow key on the HDS and scroll to the next page. I think there are at least 3 pre-set engine data pages, and on at least one of them, engine hours should be showing.

If engine hours appears on this page, then engine hrs data is obviously being sent to the network from the engine. Please check and report back. I am betting that it will be there.

If that is the case, then we will simply need to set up the SMIS gauge to show engine hours on one of the screens. Easy-peassey!

With these NMEA2000 networks, everything that is connected to the network can share info with everything else on the network. Things are not actually connected to each other, they are connected to the network, and they "see" anything else that is also connected to the network.

Think of the "network" like the telephone line in your house. If you have a telephone attached in the kitchen, and you take a call, and someone picks up another phone say in the study, then they will be able to hear the conversation, right! Networks are much the same, except better because they can do multiple things at once.

The fuse you refer to should be on a red wire that at one end, goes to a wire that connects to a T piece on the network, and yes, good idea to have a fuse there.

This is the power supply for the network "backbone". Backbone is just a fancy name for the set of T pieces and cables that everything plugs into. It needs power to work. Frequently, the other end of that power wire is connected into a spare + power wire on the engine harness behind the dash, with the result that when you turn the engine key on, the network gets power. (I dont prefer this - I have my network power on a separate switch on my switch panel. Means that I can have full network capability when the engine is turned off. But is is acceptable practice.)

Also,following on from this, the SMIS gauges don't have separate power connections: they draw their power from the network. Which is why, on your boat, if wired as described above, they most likely come on instantly when the engine key is turned on. It also means that unless the key is on, the HDS wont see other network devices. Incidentally, The HDS has its own power supply, separate from the network. Therefore, some low power consumption devices (like the SmIS gauges) draw power from the network, other high power devices like GPS etc, dont, and have their own power supply.

Do some tests of the above, have another look, and let us know if that makes sense and all works. Then we can go to the next steps.

[surestrike]

gauges

yes the gauges are 990C88161 4"
990C088150 2"
fluid level 990C0-8816
ok I have checked the sounder and the fluid level showed my tank as full which it is but the engine hours were not showing so I went into the menu and was able to add hours in the sounder so the information is available so now we know that I suppose the next step is to get this to show in my gauges.

I`m still not sure about this fuse as I under stand an earth fuse will not carry power across it so if it`s a fusible link then you would think that a 2,4,5,6 amp fuse would be used and as red cable is always used for power supply !!!!I will have a look and see if I can follow this cable back.
as a note to this Suzuki wiring is not easy to follow as: from point A to B you can have three colour changes
and thanks for all your help so far you made it easy and uncomplicated to follow your directions
surestrike

[Moonlighter]

Ok, now we know the data is available on the network, it is simply a matter of creating a new page on the SMIS gauge where you can display engine hours.

Your instruction manual tells you how to add a page. Once the page is added, you can then amend the various items displayed to suit what you want, its kinda similar to what you did on the HDS when you added engine hours on the sounder page. The manual instructions on this are reasonably clear so give it a go and let us know the result.

Now, regarding the fluid level, what are you measuring with the fluid level sensor?

If it is fuel tank level, then you need to be careful of a couple of things. Mainly, there is the potential for conflicts with the engine interface. That may be where you are getting confused too.

When you do the boat setup in the SMIS, you will enter the fuel tank capacity. This info is used by the interface to calculate fuel remaining - as the engine burns fuel, the interface gets data from the ECU telling it how much fuel is being burnt at each injector and it keeps track of this and calculates the fuel used and remaining figures from this. Clever stuff, hey! The default is for it to use the same information to display fuel level on the virtual fuel gauge on the SMIS. And on the HDS.

Once the engine interface is set up and configured properly, it is usually incredibly accurate. For example, i regularly crew for a friend on his Striper with a DF300 Suzuki, and we can use 250 liters on the SMIS, and at the gas station, it takes 249 liters to fill up! On my own boat with a DF115, i am always within 1-2%.

Now, by adding a fluid level sensor you have complicated things! Really, given how accurate the interface is at recording fuel use, do you really need the fluid level sensor too???!!

Anyway, if you MUST have it, you can, I think, go into the network device list and "name" the fluid level sensor. You could give it a name that will be different to "fuel level" so that you can differentiate between fuel level as determined by the engine interface, and fuel level measured by the level sensor. Maybe call it "Gas level".

When you set up the SMIS display, you can that you go into the data sources menu and select the interface as the data source for fuel level, and the fluid level sensor as the source of data for "Gas". That should keep things organized and ensure that things don't get mixed up. I haven't set up a fluid level sensor, so you have to work that bit out yourself! But I imagine you will need to go into its configuration mode and go from there.

If in doubt, and as a measure of absolute last resort (we are men of course and its well known that real men NEVER read the instructions unless nothing else works!) read the fluid level sensors manual and the SMIs manual!

Regarding the wiring, i would probably ignore how it is done. The fact is that your system is working, isn't it?!

I am not sure if the fluid level sensor needs its own power supply or if it is powered by the network, but if you to into the network menu on the HDS, select devices, you should see the various active devices on your network listed there. With the engine key turned on, you should see the HDS, the SMIS gauges, the Suzuki interface and the fluid level sensor listed there. If the fluid level sensor is not listed, it most likely means that it is not getting power and is therefore not "on". Find the sensor, trace the wires and check that the red wire is connected to + and the black to neg.

[surestrike]

gauges

finally having some success the cable that had the earth fuse was the power source for the system it should have had a 3AMP fuse in it, so I don`t know how it has been powered up till now (by the gps or structure module) may be been will check this out. after I put a fuse in
the fuel has re set it self to a full tank instead of a half tank I finally have engine hours I went into duel gauges and up it popped so that is sorted to a point, as there is a 5 hour difference between the hours that showed on the gps and that might no sound much but the engine had 22.4 hours showing yesterday now on the gauge it`s 27. 4 I have probably spent a few hours messing with these gauges but I though these new motors only showed running time
tomorrow I`ll have a look as it`s messing with my head at the moment
surestrike

[surestrike]

gauges

hi moonlighter have you had any thoughts on why there was a 5 hour difference between gps and the gauge

I can on longer get hours showing on gps to see if I had two different readings

I might do a log for the next couple of hours that I run the motor to make sure that I am getting a correct reading
do you know if this motor only reads hours that motor is running or from the time the key is turned on

[Moonlighter]

Both the SMIS gauge and the HDS get their data from the same source: the engine's ecu. So they should read the same engine hours. Definitely. And the ecu reports engine running time, not key on time.

Weird if they are different. Weird.

Try something for me.

Turn everything on, engine doesn't need to be running but key must be on. Everything else that is on the network to be also turned on.

Go into the menu, network, devices, data sources, and find the option to do a auto-detect. Select and execute that option, it will ask if you want to, yes.

Then check the gauges and the GPS engine data screens again and see what they are now saying.

[surestrike]

gauges

ok I have done as you said the gps is now saying 27.28 global and the gauge is showing 27.4
I could not find auto select so went into engine it shows two center motors one was showing invalid so moved down to the second center motor and engine hours came up on the gps
do I need to reconfigure to this engine as that option showed at the bottom of the page:

[Moonlighter]

Ok....... Now I think I might see the problem!

Whoever set this network up either didn't do it properly or somehow the settings have been lost!

You have to go into the boat setup menu and tell the system your boat setup! It needs to be set up to match your boat. That is, you need to set it to be:

1 motor, 1 fuel tank if that is what you have! And the single motor is centre. And you have to set up fuel tank capacity in gallons.

Easiest way to do this is on the HDS. The settings are shared across the network so changing the HDS will change the SMIS gauges.

Ok. Here we go.

Go to this link, open the document, and start from page 3 where it says MFD setup.

It walks you through the configuration and setup process. There are screen shots there that make it easy! Do every step! If you get stuck, come back and I will help.

This failure to set things up properly from the start has most likely been the root cause of many of the issues you've been having, so once it is all done properly, things should start to work sensibly.

Also, see figure 2A in the document. The screen shot there shows some buttons on the righ hand side. One of them is "data". I think if you select that, you might find the auto-configure option that I mentioned. Once you have done everything else, go in and find that option, and select it and do the auto-configure.

http://www.lowrance.com/Global/Lowra...Connection.pdf

Keep this document as it will help you to understand your network in future!