Floscan Installed

[shadow9999]

As an electronic upgrade, I installed a floscan system. The install took me about 6 hours total and was done over a period of about a week, a little here and a little there. The modules that the flow meters wire into are NMEA2000 so the tie into my electronics on board was simple. This is a great tool especially when doing any long distance cruising or travel. A few really cool displays suddenly showed up on my GPS and Marine Electronics displays once the modules were tied into the NMEA2000 network. All in all, not a hugh expense, not a difficult installation, and a really cool enhancement in my opinion. :thumbsup:

 

[searay40dad]

Congrats. nice work. did you install your garmin pkg too?

 

[shadow9999]

Congrats. nice work. did you install your garmin pkg too?

Yes. I installed all the electronics after I purchased the boat last year. The installation included a bunch of fiberglass work around the dash and a new burlwood panel because the previous owner had some surface mounted electronics, and a bunch of stuff that didn't work which I removed. I didn't do the fibergalss work, but I did everything else including the KVH, the ScanStrut, and the gantry for the lights.

 

[SevenTeas]

Looks like a great idea. Let us know how it works for you. Also pictures are nice....

 

[shadow9999]

Looks like a great idea. Let us know how it works for you. Also pictures are nice....

I will take some and post them.

 

[quality time]

I have them, they're great....or not so great depending on your fuel burn. :smt021

 

[Odyssey]

I have been wanting to do that for a long time. Since we have the same engines, I would love to hear the details!

Randy

 

[Whitenights]

Best, and worse thing I did to my boat. Now I am obsessed with finding my best gallon per mile. Very accurate too, when it says I have used 100 gals, it is always within 3-5 gallons.

 

[Pietro]

Robert, I have just installed mines for the 3208. Now I have to adjust them. Did you understand how do it???
The manual says to check fuel consumption at idle ....this means about 1 GPH ...how can I check this, as the needle barely moves??? :huh:
How did you adjust yours???

 

[quality time]

Best, and worse thing I did to my boat. Now I am obsessed with finding my best gallon per mile. Very accurate too, when it says I have used 100 gals, it is always within 3-5 gallons.

Exactly

 

[osd9]

Robert:

I'm curious to know how accurately the burn rate tracks CATs published burn rate...

 

[shadow9999]

Here are some pics and details of the installation. I installed both of the flow sensors for the port engine in the support strut aft in the engine room. The forward flow sensor for the starboard engine is likewise on the support strut, but the return is on the exhaust tube support strut. More on that later. First is a pic of the port engine sensors.



The sensor that is farther to port is the forward flow sensor and the other one is the return flow sensor. Here is a closer look at the forward flow sensor.



It sits above the port sea strainer. There is enough room to remove the strainer with about two inches to spare. Here is a closer look at the port return sensor.



The starboard forward flow sensor is in a similar location but on the opposite side from the forward port flow sensor.



I decided not to put the starboard return sensor on the support strut because I felt that it was getting a bit tight for me (or a mechanic) to squeeze in to get behind the engines if need be. So I placed the starboard return flow sensor on the support strut for the starboard exhaust tube.



Here is a picture of the computer units that connect to my NMEA2000 network.



By the way, the fuse box you see to the left of the computers is a fuse box I installed for some underwater lights I put in this spring.

Anyway, the computers have six wires, three go to each of the two flow sensors for that engine, three to the forward and three to the return. The wires need to be shielded and the shield needs to connect to the boats bonding system for glitch free data transmission between the sensors and the computers.

More in the next post.

 

[shadow9999]

I had to have some custom hoses made up. So I went to a local hydraulic shop and had them done. You need to measure carefully because you can not return these hoses and they are expensive. The four hoses with the fittings cost me about $350.00.

You need to remove the supply hose from the engine and connect it to the input side of the forward flow sensor. Than one of your custom hoses goes from the output side of the forward flow sensor back to where you just removed the supply hose from the engine. Likewise on the return side, you need to remove the hose from the engine and connect it to the output of the return flow sensor. Than use one of your custom hoses to connect from the input of the return flow sensor to where you just removed the return hose from the engine. So two custom hoses per engine are needed. I also had to change one fuel fitting on each engine. The forward flow fittings were 1/2" flair fittings. The return fittings were 3/8" fittings. Hydraulic hoses and fittings come in 1/4" and 1/2" sizes amoung others, but not 3/8" So I had to purchase two fittings from the hydraulic guy and replace the 3/8" fittings with 1/2" ones.

I used a length of rubber hose that I had laying around to measure the lengths that I needed. I routed the rubber hose, marked each end, laid it out straight and measured it. Each of the four hoses were different lengths varying from 26" to 48".

Finally I needed to calibrate the units. Actually, I went though the procedure, but didn't need to change anything as they were perfectly calibrated from the factory.

First, I found a test report of a boat similar to mine with the same engines. That test report stated that the engines burned 1.5 gallons per hour under load at idle. My system showed exactly that. If not, there is a dial to turn that will allow you to dial in the correct idle burn rate. Next was the cruise burn rate calibration. First step is to zero out the total burn counter. This is a simple button press. Next fill the tanks with fuel. Now the fun part. Take the boat for a cruise and burn 40 or 50 gallons. The more the better. Next go back to the fuel dock and fill up again (the not so fun part). Compare the fuel pumped in to the total fuel burned per the computers. There is a dial that you can turn on the computer to adjust if the numbers are different. Mine were spot on.

That's it. I believe that anyone that knows how to turn a wrench can do this install. Its not very difficult and the system gives you grate information such as fuel burn rate, fuel economy, gallons burned, gallons remaining on board, and range based on current fuel on board and current burn rate. This is a great tool for anyone that does long distance cruising.

 

[Alex F]

Robert,

That's some very nice installation. Nice job. Thanks for sharing.

 

[SevenTeas]

Nice clean install thanks for the picts!!!!

 

[Pietro]

Robert, if you can read 1.5 GPH I guess you have digital gauges... I have the traditional ones and it's impossible to see such a low value!!! I'll check the cruise rate...

 

[shadow9999]

Robert, if you can read 1.5 GPH I guess you have digital gauges... I have the traditional ones and it's impossible to see such a low value!!! I'll check the cruise rate...

There are two places where I can read the burn rate. First in on the computer displays. If you look at the picture of the computer units you will see the LCD screen. that displays the burn rate, and other information, when the system is on. Of course that is in the engine room, so it's not the best place to get data from. But since these units tie into my NMEA2000 network, I don't have any gages dedicated to the system. All the data shows up on my NMEA2000 devices. There is a very cool fuel screen that comes up on my Garmin GPS, and there are several screens that come up on my Garmin GMI10. At cruise, I'm buring about 28.5 gallons per hour.

 

[tobnpr]

Interesting thread. I had a friend that installed them for his Cummins', and he told me it was a real pain in the a** getting it calibrated properly for the fuel return.

Thought about doing them a while back, but I just couldn't justify the expense (as compared to the gasser units). My fuel gauges are accurate enough for me, I never cut it that close. Still a good tool for indicating potential issues if fuel burn suddenly gets outta whack.

 

[shadow9999]

My fuel gauges are accurate enough for me, I never cut it that close. Still a good tool for indicating potential issues if fuel burn suddenly gets outta whack.

I never cut it that close either. However, I do run the boat back and forth from New Jersey to Florida with lots of long ocean runs. I have fully redundant GPS systems, and VHS radios. Plus handhelds for both in addition to the redundancy. EPIRB, and MMSI number registered and programmed into VHF's. Life raft with auto deploy device. So this is just another "safety device" as far as I'm concerned. Plus it's pretty cool!

 

[Pietro]

I never cut it that close either. However, I do run the boat back and forth from New Jersey to Florida with lots of long ocean runs. I have fully redundant GPS systems, and VHS radios. Plus handhelds for both in addition to the redundancy. EPIRB, and MMSI number registered and programmed into VHF's. Life raft with auto deploy device. So this is just another "safety device" as far as I'm concerned. Plus it's pretty cool![/quote]

That's usually the ultimate excuse for wasting all of our money on the boat :grin::grin::grin: