Alarms, gauges & sender recommendations

[rangerscott275]

Hello,

I have a 1970 53 MY w/ VT8-370s (turbo models). the boat has the stock 2 water tanks and 2 fuel tanks. The engines currently have no alarms.

I would like to install high temperature and high oil pressure alarms on the engines and was looking for recommendation for good units / models. Also, the gauges / senders for my fuel and water tanks don't appear to be working...at least not accurately. I have heard there is a system, digital, that can be used for water tanks, fuel tanks and even holding tanks...all in one digital unit. Has anyone used this, if so any feedback? Thanks in advance!

 

[Traveler 45C]

This tank monitoring system will be installed on my boat. Someday… http://www.snake-river.org/

 

[Nonchalant1]

I installed the Snake River Ultra-8 tank monitor in my 53MY. It can monitor up to 8 tanks and yes it will handle fuel, water and holding tanks. You will see on their website that there are different types of senders and different types of gauges. The only senders you should get are the PVC rod sensore for water and holding tanks and the diesel fuel sensors for the fuel tanks. The reason is that the "foil strip" sensors only work on smooth tanks like injection molded plastic, not the heavy fiberglass tanks with deep woven roving on them like Hatteras makes. BTW - I'd be surprised if you didn't have 3 water tanks connected in series instead of two. One in tha aft lazarette, one under the mid-stateroom inboard bunk and one under the closet floor in the aft stateroom. Hatteras usually just had a gauge only on the latter one with a hatch plate in the closet floor at the sb aft corner of the closet.

All it takes is a 12V power wire to the display and a 3 conductor wire running from the display to each tank you want to monitor. For the sensors, you unscrew the large hex-head old sensors, buy regular pipe htreaded PVC adapters from Home Depot (maybe bronze or brass for the diesel tanks) to get you down to a 1 inch pipe thread size, measure the depth from your new adapter to the bottom of the tank with a stick and e-mail that measurement to Snake River. They make you the right length sensor rod to screw right in.
Very simple and straight forward. Your biggest hassle is you have to go buy the right size giant sockets from Sears to fit the old sensor heads and a big socket handle and breaker bar to bust loose the old senders.

The Ultra-8 display monitors tank levels to the tenths instead of the quarters like their other sensors, and it has a light and beep for almost empty or almost full. I have found it to be fairly accurate.

Doug Shuman

 

[SKYCHENEY]

For my holding tanks I used the Snake River probes as well. I used the 1" hole that was previously the inlet to the tank for the probe. I then adapted the 2" hole that was previously where the 3/4 full pressure switch was hooked to and adapted that for my new 1 1/2" inlet hoses. I figured that it would be better not to restrict my inlet down to 1". It has worked out well from an installation standpoint. Now we'll see how it does when I finally get to try it out in another month. It was 70 degrees here yesterday and only 33 today.

 

[rangerscott275]

a couple of questions...

1) what is a lazzerette?
2) (I'm scared to ask this but...) if my boat is all 32v system, but alot of today's electronics take 12v, how do I wire...do I run off just one battery?
3) any suggestions on engine alarms (temp & pressure)?

THANKS!!!

 

[SKYCHENEY]

You already have some 12v converters on the boat. They are most likely located in the helm(lower portion or overhead console) to run your electronics. You may be able to pull 12v power off of one of these converters. They are probably Newmar units. Open the overhead console and look for the black boxes with cooling fins on them.

BTW, I just looked at the picture of your boat. She is a beauty. I want to see more. Interior?

 

[admiralty58]

Sams sells the entire original mechanical gauges. Means a bit of crawling around with a flashlight for checking levels, but they already made it 30 years.....just have to buy that 3" socket to remove/install them

 

[rangerscott275]

Thanks...I will post more pictures once I get a bit more work done...you will like the results I think! Did you have to cut into the water tanks to install pvc senders? (like the one under 2nd Stateroom bunk....the only thing I see on that is a vent line coming out of top of it [I have removed bunk as I'm redoing that room]).

 

[rangerscott275]

Steve from Sams recommended the following:

System Monitor 32V w/ senders:

http://www.samsmarine.com/PartSearch/LinkPart.cfm?ItemNmbr=24028

I was wondering if anyone has this system installed on their vessel and has any feedback. Also, was wondering if there are any recommendations for any other systems that maybe only does oil pressure, water flow and engine temperature (so maybe a hair cheaper)? As of now I have no sensors / alarms on either engine.

Again I have VT8-370s if that makes a difference. Thanks!

 

[Genesis]

That's basically the unit that I have on my 45C, although I've changed a few things. My high water alarms are paralleled and I have only one fire bell ring as well (engine room), so I reassigned the other two. One is assigned to AC loss and the other is a spare; appropriate labels applied. My "water flow" alarm is connected to the exhaust stack temperature switches, which are far superior to the water flow switches they supply in that it is both more sensitive and detects more faults in that part of the system.

It works well; I've had no trouble with it. It was on the boat when I got it; the wiring to it was completely hosed (everything rang on the fire light!) but that was easily corrected.