Flo Scan

Phil Fill wrote:I agree a boat is not like a car where you can pull along side the road.*

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No, but it isn't likely to get rear ended or sideswiped either. It isn't likely to sink on the spot or leave you to freeze on a mountainside or toast in the desert.*

Darn few airplanes fall out of the sky because someone didn't check the engine rooms every hour or so*on a transatlantic flight.*That is what gauges and alarms are for, so you don't have to keep an engineer on the floorplates.

You probably have a radio, a lifeboat of some description, and a comfortable place to sit and wait for a tow. The car comparison is bogus.

*

While we are not constantly making engine room checks, what we DO do is have a little oven timer at the helm set to five minutes.* It counts down five minutes and starts to beep.* It's not super-loud, startling, or irritating, it's just a fairly quiet chirping.* This alerts us to check all the engine, electrical, and exhaust instruments at which point we hit the timer button which resets it to five minutes and it counts down again.* We got this idea from two places.* One of them was Carey, who did the same thing.*

The other was from a railroad in Australia that has a line across western Australia to the coast.* This line includes the longest straight stretch of track in the world and there is nothing but sand and sticker-bushes clear to the horizon.* The locomotives have manually set timers in them that go off every three minutes or so.* If the engineer doesn't physically reset the timer within a certain number of seconds the throttle goes to idle and the brakes are applied on the train.* This part of the line is so numbingly boring--- same as running a trawler at cruise speed --- that this system was devised to preven the engine crew from dozing off.

It's very easy to get distracted when running a boat.* We took the autopilot off our boat when we bought it but even when steering manually it's easy to get into watching the scenery or wildlife or talking to guests or looking for debris in the water.* So it's easy to let long periods of time go by without looking at the gauges.* The little oven timer works great as a reminder.

I'm a big fan of analog instument displays as opposed to digital displays because an analog display (needle on a dial) indicates trends without having to read any numbers.* A previous owner of our boat did a clever thing, and that was to put thin strips of electrical tape on every instrument (except the tachs) indicating the instrument's normal reading.* All the temp, pressure, amp, volt, and EGT gauges have these little strips of tape marking the normal readings.* So checking the instruments consists of one quick scan to make sure all the needles are in the vicinity of the tape marks.* There is no need to read any numbers.

If a needle is not near its tape mark, then it warrants a closer look and corrective action of some sort if in fact a non-normal condition exists.




-- Edited by Marin on Friday 17th of December 2010 03:41:53 PM

Marin wrote:I'm a big fan of analog instrument displays as opposed to digital displays ..... A previous owner of our boat did a clever thing, and that was to put thin strips of electrical tape on every instrument (except the tachs) indicating the instrument's normal reading. ...... So checking the instruments consists of one quick scan to make sure all the needles are in the vicinity of the tape marks. .......

If a needle is not near its tape mark, then it warrants a closer look and corrective action of some sort......

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I'm also a supporter of analog instruments and have read studies that were taken
with pilots and race car drivers that showed the majority of both preferred the
analog products. Why? The brain, when subjected to a graphic depiction over and
over again (like a needle location) embeds this in your subconscious and after
you've perfected your scan, you subconsciously notice a misplaced needle even
though you are not concentrating on it.* Digital depictions do not have near the
impact on the brain that analog displays have.

I've also seen the "thin tape" indicators on many a training aircraft and have used
them myself in the early days of flight training.
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RickB wrote:


Marin wrote:So at any sign of the begining of an overheat an FL120 should be shut down immediately.* A raw water monitor of some sort will provide this advance warning.

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This little device or something similar attached to the cooled portion of the exhaust elbow will do a great job of letting you know that things are heating up.

http://www.devale.com/disc-thermostat/bimetal-disc-thermostat-fixed-temperature.html




We have one of those.* In the PNW it's called a "Norm" switch.* Norm Dibble who use to work at Doc Freemans put them together.* I think you can still buy them at Pat's Marine in Seatlle where Norm was working the last I heard.

Larry/Lena
Hobo KK42
Caleta de Campos, Michoacan, MX

*

RickB wrote:

"Attached is a section drawing of our primary gauge cluster."

They say that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything but I just have to say that that panel is like some of those seen on homebuilt aircraft. Some people think guages are cool so the builder tries to find a place for every guage he collected during the build.

As a long time guage gazer I would prefer to see the guages that matter grouped together in a rational manner so a quick scan will show what you need to know just by the positiion of the indicators ... you really don't need to read the numbers every time your eyes pass over the real estate, you look for patterns and changes in the patterns. Put your temperatures together near your pressures, side by side or vertical.

Do you really need to scan your blackwater level or potable and gray water contents? Are they changing that quickly that you need to know RIGHT NOW? That panel is pretty valuable real estate to fill up with a septic tank guage.

It's your boat so it's your choice but using it for an example isn't doing anyone any favors.

That's my 2 cents on that subject ...

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Would you like change for your 2 cents?

*

Nah, you can keep it. Save up for a new console.*

Larry M wrote:I think you can still buy them at Pat's Marine in Seatlle where Norm was working the last I heard.

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FYI, Norm retired a number of years ago and has apparently expressed no interest whatsoever in having anything to do with engines anymore except his own.* IIRC his main occupation became fishing.

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RickB wrote:

Nah, you can keep it. Save up for a new console.*

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LOL, Rickster, you are a caution.* Having shown that regardless of your ignorance on a subject, be it the chemical composition of epoxies, exhaust manifold cooling on marine diesels, the practical implications of torgue in marine diesels, or stability questions, you are never short of an opinion, and I'm glad you have a forum to express yourself.*

Stay true to form; your postings are always amusing!

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Steady, Rick.

Delfin wrote:

*
RickB wrote:

Nah, you can keep it. Save up for a new console.*

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LOL, Rickster, you are a caution.* Having shown that regardless of your ignorance on a subject, be it the chemical composition of epoxies, exhaust manifold cooling on marine diesels, the practical implications of torgue in marine diesels, or stability questions, you are never short of an opinion, and I'm glad you have a forum to express yourself.*

Stay true to form; your postings are always amusing!Come on DelphinHow do you ever get that f--king ego in your engine room?*

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-- Edited by Carey on Friday 17th of December 2010 10:30:06 PM

Carey wrote:

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Come on DelphinHow do you ever get that f--king ego in your engine room?*

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-- Edited by Carey on Friday 17th of December 2010 10:30:06 PM
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Gee, Carey, I thought we were talking about gauge clusters, and what gauges might be useful on a trawler.* Like old Rick, does the idea of measuring tank levels bother you?

But I understand your affection for the Rickster.* After all, he is the one you thanked for "keeping us safe" from loading our vessels as they were intended to be loaded, so we, in our ignorance, wouldn't load them so and turn turtle while at anchor.* Reminded me a bit of the pony tail guy who asked Bill Clinton during one of his campaigns to "treat us as children."

Signing off.... *

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I prefer Delfins lay out.* *


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I fail to see comparing an airplane to a boat is any more bogus than comparing a boat to a car.***However, I do appreciate opinions.*


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I would hate to loose Delfin experience and knowelege*because some*are not positive and civil.******

"I fail to see comparing an airplane to a boat is any more bogus than comparing a boat to a car"

Both are very similar in that they may be operated by an autopilot ,with a very tired or not observant person .

Cars at least some steering input between phone calls , texting and watching a video , GPS and checking facebook.

Cars can pull over , boats and aircraft have to work harder at stopping.

Well back to the flow-scans. Hears my 2 cents worth which really isn't worth 2 cents.
Flow scans for most of us on this forum would be a major purchase for our boat, so the question is not really are flow-scans a valuable tool, but rather are they the best money spent. For me on a limited budget, there are other less expensive ways of determining the best fuel consumption speeds, fuel remaining, potential problems, etc. These other ways involve more work but in so doing will result in a better understanding of the inner workings of your boat.

My ER is very cramped so an inspection once a day is all it gets. I do however try an keep a dry bilge with oil absorbent diapers underneath the engines. An oil, water or coolant leak would be readily apparent.

A raw water alarm is essential and I wouldn't operate my boat without one. I choose borel:http://www.borelmfg.com/index.html

timjet wrote:

Flow scans for most of us on this forum would be a major purchase for our boat, so the question is not really are flow-scans a valuable tool, but rather are they the best money spent. For me on a limited budget, there are other less expensive ways of determining the best fuel consumption speeds, fuel remaining, potential problems, etc.at without one.

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I think that's a pretty smart assessment.* Information is always good to have--- you can use it if you need it or ignore it if you want, but you can't use it if you don't have it.* But for most of us, our boats don't use all that much fuel and fine-tuning the power setting isn't going to save us all that much (in my opinion, anyway).* I daresay that while FloScans would be interesting to have on our boat, and like Walt I believe if they're intepreted properly they can be used to detect some types of potential problems, I don't think they would make a significant difference in the way we operate our boat.* Not enough to warrant their installation at this point.* We have other things (not necessarily related to the boat) that would make better use of the money.

But like bow thrusters,* if one has the budget to assign to them, I believe FloScans would be a good addition to a boat.

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Walt says * "I'm also a supporter of analog instruments"

I am for most things but analogs won't tell you some things fast enough. When I flew ultralights I always used a digital meter for cylinder head temperature. Half of us used cyl head temps and half used exhaust temp gauges. I used cyl temp and I couldn't see the small changes that were so important w an analog. With the digital I could see in a very brief glance if the temp was going up or down but also how fast. The thing I liked about analogs is that one could see if things were normal w the smallest of flash glances. But when one needs to know more digital seems to be better. I don't generally like rocker switches * *.... another unwelcome "modern" thing.
At a gallon an hour I'm going to pass on this Floscan thing.


-- Edited by nomadwilly on Saturday 18th of December 2010 04:21:25 PM