FL120 gage overhaul - Nolan RS11?

[socalrider]

Thanks again for the valuable comments sbman.

After thinking it over a bit the lack of documentation & few/no user experiences with the Veratron stuff gave me cold feet. I also agree that having chart plotter capacity at the lower helm would be nice.

So I ordered an Alba Combi unit for the gateway with the SeaTalkNG kit (since that's the backbone I already have). I'll move my 7" Axiom to the lower helm where the gauges used to be, and I got a new 9" Axiom for the upper helm which I can use for gauges and a chart plotter. I may add some dedicated gauges down the line if necessary, but for what I'm doing I think a single display should be fine.

I also bit the bullet and got the Aetna tach drives & senders.

I've got some wire, switches & fuses to sort through & order while I wait for the gear to arrive. And I gotta figure out how to deal with the aesthetics of the lower helm. Thanks for all the help everyone!

 

[sbman]

Thanks again for the valuable comments sbman.

After thinking it over a bit the lack of documentation & few/no user experiences with the Veratron stuff gave me cold feet. I also agree that having chart plotter capacity at the lower helm would be nice.

So I ordered an Alba Combi unit for the gateway with the SeaTalkNG kit (since that's the backbone I already have). I'll move my 7" Axiom to the lower helm where the gauges used to be, and I got a new 9" Axiom for the upper helm which I can use for gauges and a chart plotter. I may add some dedicated gauges down the line if necessary, but for what I'm doing I think a single display should be fine.

I also bit the bullet and got the Aetna tach drives & senders.

I've got some wire, switches & fuses to sort through & order while I wait for the gear to arrive. And I gotta figure out how to deal with the aesthetics of the lower helm. Thanks for all the help everyone!

Well I'm happy to help with the Alba Combi as much as needed. The key thing they don't mention in the documentation is that to change a channel from voltage based to resistive based, there are dip switches that make that change. That took a while to find out.

I also have curves for single station FL120 senders but those curves are voltage based to piggyback on an existing analog gauge cluster install which I don't think you are planning to do. Making curves if needed for direct-wire resistive senders is pretty easy really if the pre-defined ones aren't to your liking.

There's a decent local source for marine grade wire and such, their prices are reasonable and you can specify local pick up to save shipping hassles. They are located near the Home Depot on Fairmont. You use a coupon code per their order page to apply the local pickup option.

https://baymarinesupply.com/

 

[socalrider]

Well I'm happy to help with the Alba Combi as much as needed. The key thing they don't mention in the documentation is that to change a channel from voltage based to resistive based, there are dip switches that make that change. That took a while to find out.

I also have curves for single station FL120 senders but those curves are voltage based to piggyback on an existing analog gauge cluster install which I don't think you are planning to do. Making curves if needed for direct-wire resistive senders is pretty easy really if the pre-defined ones aren't to your liking.

There's a decent local source for marine grade wire and such, their prices are reasonable and you can specify local pick up to save shipping hassles. They are located near the Home Depot on Fairmont. You use a coupon code per their order page to apply the local pickup option.

https://baymarinesupply.com/

Thanks a ton - I may well take you up on your offer to help with the Alba Combi.

I'm debating buying a new set of single station senders just so I know what I'm dealing with. Definitely will just need the resistive curves.

Thanks for the tip on Bay Marine - I'd pinged them in the middle of COVID lockdown about making me some battery cables but they weren't offering that service at the time.

 

[sbman]

If you order new senders, at least for the temperature ones you can easily make a curve for them by just hooking them up to an ohm meter, dropping them in a cup of boiling water that also has a thermometer in it and note a few points of resistance/temperature as the water cools. A similar rig for self calibration of a pressure sensor isn't too hard to do either. Or you can go by the numbers provided by the sender of course.

If you need battery cables, I've got a hydraulic crimper that I can make up to 4/0 with.

 

[socalrider]

If you order new senders, at least for the temperature ones you can easily make a curve for them by just hooking them up to an ohm meter, dropping them in a cup of boiling water that also has a thermometer in it and note a few points of resistance/temperature as the water cools. A similar rig for self calibration of a pressure sensor isn't too hard to do either. Or you can go by the numbers provided by the sender of course.

If you need battery cables, I've got a hydraulic crimper that I can make up to 4/0 with.

Good call. Easy calibration job at home, good opportunity to show the kids how stuff works. I went ahead and ordered some new 3/8" npt temp senders, 80psi pressure senders & some fittings so I can hook them to a bicycle pump.

Already have the battery cables made up, but thanks again!

 

[sbman]

Sounds like you've got a good plan. The calibration ended up being a simple linear line once I was done for both the pressure and temp sensors. The alba combi shows a calibration page and displays the calibration curve. They have a few premade curves, but I wanted to see it all work and make my own. This came in handy when calibrating the non linear fuel tank probe.

I took a screenshot and notated the level of the tank in inches for each reading for my own records. Then I only had to play with the 'Calibrated' values to set the gallons that each level represented since the tank was oddly shaped near the bottom.

Getting it to read 'Resistive Mode' at the bottom of the screen was the frustration, that is done by powering off the unit, taking the top off it and flipping dip switch that corresponds to the channel you want to change from voltage to resistive.

On any sensor channel, you can go to this config page for the particular channel and click the 'Measured' button to sample the live resistance or voltage, or click the 'Calibrated' button to see the value after it's been put through the calibration. That's the value that will be sent out the NMEA data stream. If I remember correctly, 9 points is the maximum.

 

[sbman]

Correction, the output for fuel in NMEA is % of fuel, not gallons. 0-100

 

[socalrider]

Sounds like you've got a good plan. The calibration ended up being a simple linear line once I was done for both the pressure and temp sensors. The alba combi shows a calibration page and displays the calibration curve. They have a few premade curves, but I wanted to see it all work and make my own. This came in handy when calibrating the non linear fuel tank probe.

I took a screenshot and notated the level of the tank in inches for each reading for my own records. Then I only had to play with the 'Calibrated' values to set the gallons that each level represented since the tank was oddly shaped near the bottom.

Getting it to read 'Resistive Mode' at the bottom of the screen was the frustration, that is done by powering off the unit, taking the top off it and flipping dip switch that corresponds to the channel you want to change from voltage to resistive.

On any sensor channel, you can go to this config page for the particular channel and click the 'Measured' button to sample the live resistance or voltage, or click the 'Calibrated' button to see the value after it's been put through the calibration. That's the value that will be sent out the NMEA data stream. If I remember correctly, 9 points is the maximum.

Finally have the AlbaCombi hooked up. Can’t figure out how to connect to my laptop (Mac) via Ethernet. Have the proper cable and settings say it’s connected but logging onto the IP address for the unit via Chrome just gives me a “no internet” message. Any ideas? I’m a MechE so you’ll need to speak slowly

 

[sbman]

SocalRider and I are chatting about this directly, but I wanted to keep this thread alive so that anyone that chooses an Alba Combi as a DIY gauge input solution is able to see what the issues and solutions were as well.

Socalrider, I would do the following, in this order:

When setting up your connection per the AlbaCombi instructions, change the setting on your mac: 'using dhcp with manual address' to something that says 'manual address', you don't want any DHCP involvement. Your subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0 all the DNS stuff can be blank.

Stick with Chrome, I can say for sure that Safari doesn't work 100%.

Try putting the FULL URL in: http://192.168.0.50 , not just the numbers.

 

[socalrider]

SocalRider and I are chatting about this directly, but I wanted to keep this thread alive so that anyone that chooses an Alba Combi as a DIY gauge input solution is able to see what the issues and solutions were as well.

Socalrider, I would do the following, in this order:

When setting up your connection per the AlbaCombi instructions, change the setting on your mac: 'using dhcp with manual address' to something that says 'manual address', you don't want any DHCP involvement. Your subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0 all the DNS stuff can be blank.

Stick with Chrome, I can say for sure that Safari doesn't work 100%.

Try putting the FULL URL in: http://192.168.0.50 , not just the numbers.

SBMan you're a life saver! For the record, this worked - here's what the Mac ethernet config should look like.

Still have some wiring to do, but getting close...

 

[sbman]

Glad that worked. I found that on Safari the dashboard display did not work properly, I was able to do configuration if I remember correctly, but I ended up just using Chrome because everything worked properly including the dashboard display.