Smart Craft Error

H

Hans

New Member
Mar 22, 2009
280
Baltimore
Boat Info
Boatless
Engines
Boatless
I have a 2007 Sea Ray Sundance 38 with a smart craft unit. It is showing a Fuel Sender Error. "Level sender for tank 2 is not working properly". What is interesting is that the fuel consumption and levels are correct. Both analog instruments and Smart Craft display agree.

Called Sea Ray rep who suggests replacing the sender unit for $445.00. I'm not sure that the problem is with the sender unit though, I'm guessing the issue is with the smart craft unit. Any thoughts? Attached you'll find pictures of the smart craft display as well as the analog intruments.
 
Last edited:
Hans,

I tend to agree that if the analog is correct then the "sender" must be OK....unless there are seperate "senders" for the analog and SmartCraft. Try the usual check of the connectors (unplug and plug) that feed SmartCraft. If that fails try and dive down in the manual schematics for more information. Keep us posted on what you find.
 
Thanks for the info. Going to check the connectors this weekend. It is interesting to note that everything appears to be working normally, except that damn error triangle on the smart craft. Was is also noteworthy is the reference to tank 2. My smart craft designates the tanks by S1 P1, no tank 2. Also, the error only comes up when starting the starboard side.
 
Are you sure those are analog fuel gauges? I thought both the 4-in-1 guages and the SmartCraft digital display all pulled data from the same source.
 
You are correct. They do pull from the same data source however, I believe the gauge is analog. Take a look at the pictures above. The gages are both up there.
 
Last edited:
Took delivery of our new 38DA last April and shortly thereafter, started to get disimilar readings out of both tanks. The analog guages matched the Smart Craft reading but they would go up and down at random. Since the boat was still under warrantly, our Sea Ray dealer made a service call and advised that several years ago Sea Ray had started to replace the mechincal sending units to ultrasonic ones and now found that after a year or two, they would start to fail.

According to the Tech, there was a fleet wide redesign and Sea Ray had to go back and requalify their supply chain to get the new mechincal units in stock for both production and warranty. They were doing one tank size at a time and by fall '09 had completed the 32/33/34/35 tanks. He told me Sea Ray advised him to keep replacing the ultrsonic units as they failed until the new ones were qualified. So far, one in each of our tanks has been replaced.

Just checked last week with the dealer to find out what the status is and have not heard anything back.

Hope this helps!
 
Hans said:
You are correct. They do pull from the same data source however, I believe the gauge is analog. Take a look at the pictures above. The gages are both up there.
Click to expand...

I agree the gauge displays data in an "analog" fashion. I was more refering to the fact that the data must be coming from the ECM in a digital format (ie: ones and zeroes) rather than an electrical resistance reading - thus all the gauges are therefore digital (from the data perspective).

But - I'm certainly not an expert in this - maybe Henry or another SmartCraft expert can chime in? Am I understanding where the data is coming from properly? Sorry to distract your thread...
 
K-Kruisin' said:
Took delivery of our new 38DA last April and shortly thereafter, started to get disimilar readings out of both tanks. The analog guages matched the Smart Craft reading but they would go up and down at random. Since the boat was still under warrantly, our Sea Ray dealer made a service call and advised that several years ago Sea Ray had started to replace the mechincal sending units to ultrasonic ones and now found that after a year or two, they would start to fail.

According to the Tech, there was a fleet wide redesign and Sea Ray had to go back and requalify their supply chain to get the new mechincal units in stock for both production and warranty. They were doing one tank size at a time and by fall '09 had completed the 32/33/34/35 tanks. He told me Sea Ray advised him to keep replacing the ultrsonic units as they failed until the new ones were qualified. So far, one in each of our tanks has been replaced.

Just checked last week with the dealer to find out what the status is and have not heard anything back.

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

That's interesting, thanks for the info. Wonder which ones I have??
 
Thanks K-Kruisen,

Keep me posted with your progress on this issue. I will run this by my MarineMax dealer and see if he has input on this. Everything appears to be working normally but I don't like errors showing on the display. I'm a computer guy and errors usually mean something will happen if you don't correct! Just sayin!

Thanks again for your reply.

Hans
 
Two Peas said:
I agree the gauge displays data in an "analog" fashion. I was more refering to the fact that the data must be coming from the ECM in a digital format (ie: ones and zeroes) rather than an electrical resistance reading - thus all the gauges are therefore digital (from the data perspective).

But - I'm certainly not an expert in this - maybe Henry or another SmartCraft expert can chime in? Am I understanding where the data is coming from properly? Sorry to distract your thread...
Click to expand...

Thanks Two Peas. I am learning as I go. I very much appreciate all information feed back. I haven't been on CSR long but it sure is a great source of information.

It would make sense that if they share a common source, the original source would be digital.

Hans
 
Not sure where the error message is coming from.

The gauges are just an analog looking display. All of the functions like fuel level, temperature, volts, RPM, oil pressure, trim are collected by transducers and fed into the ECM. The ECM then pushes this data up the CAN cable to what are called the System displays. These can be the Vessel and Systems View displays, or the SC1000 Tach and speedo. The link gauges are then fed by these. There are also comparable outboard system devices.

Within the limits of the gauge's tolerances, what is on the gauge should agree with what is shown on the System/Vessel View display because it all comes from the same place.

However, because the gauge/display looks ok does not necessarily mean that the sender is ok and the message is bogus. I would check the connections between the fuel sender and the ECM.

I would also contact Mercruiser customer service. Try and talk to a fellow there named Andrew. He seems to be their resident Smartcraft wiz. I don't mean to denigrate anyone, but when I was doing my Smartcraft upgrade, the Sea Ray people I spoke to were helpful, but not always accurate on this technology. Your guy may be right about it being a bum sender, or he may just being doing what so many techs do these days; automatically replacing the first thing the 'computer' tells him to replace and not actually trying to diagnose the problem.

I have no experience with ultrasonic sending units, so I can't comment on them. However, if you do have a mechanical sender, these things are an all or nothing proposition. They either work, or they don't. I could see however that an ultrasonic device could still partially function and throw out an error code.

As an after thought, what shape are your batteries in? If the batteries are the original 2007 vintage, they are getting close to retirement age. If they are OE, You might want somebody to put a tester on them and see how healthy they are. It wouldn't be the first time a fading battery begat an electrical system gremlin.

Henry
 
Hans said:
I have a 2007 Sea Ray Sundance 38 with a smart craft unit. It is showing a Fuel Sender Error. "Level sender for tank 2 is not working properly". What is interesting is that the fuel consumption and levels are correct. Both analog instruments and Smart Craft display agree.

Called Sea Ray rep who suggests replacing the sender unit for $445.00. I'm not sure that the problem is with the sender unit though, I'm guessing the issue is with the smart craft unit. Any thoughts? Attached you'll find pictures of the smart craft display as well as the analog intruments.
Click to expand...

*******SOLUTION*******

:smt038Here it is guys and gals!. Today my friend Bill and I went down to the marina to get to the bottom of this Smart Craft Sending Unit error. What was bothering me was that the error referred to a TANK 2. I looked through the fuel settings and confirmed my suspicions, NO TANK 2, only Starboard1 and Port1. NO TANK 2!

After confirming that there is no TANK2, we started looking at the Factory Reset option. I was a bit worried about losing my setup at first until we found the Sensor Reset function. Mmm, being a computer geek, this kind of reminded me of a device scan in device manager on a pc. So, we performed the scan of all sensors. Guess what, after the scan, the system rebooted itself and when it came back up the error was gone and do you know why, BECAUSE THERE IS NO TANK2!

Way to go Bill, thanks for the nudge to be adventurous.
 
The Microsoft solution <Ctrl> <Alt> <Del>!
Then pray you don’t get the “blue screen of death”
 
Hans, glad you figured it out. Henry, as always, thanks for your wisdom. Bill, seems you understand the smarcraft BSOD!
 
Two Peas said:
Hans, glad you figured it out. Henry, as always, thanks for your wisdom. Bill, seems you understand the smarcraft BSOD!
Click to expand...

When checking out the system it became pretty clear that the problem was with the Smartcraft and not the fuel sending unit. Both tanks were reading correctly on both the analog gauges and Smartcraft displays. The key to the issue was the error message, “Fuel Sender on Tank 2”, and this boat does not have two tanks per engine. Well the first thing we checked in the “Fuel Calibration” was that tank 2 was indeed disabled for both starboard and port side engines. With these off, why still the error? At this point we decide to use the “Rescan all sensors” option from the “System Resets” page. After doing this and the Smartcraft rebooted itself, the error message was gone. Problem solved, time for a beer!
Hans said:
Yeah, ok. Just sayin!
Click to expand...
Hans said:
How was the Papa Johns?

Seriously, thanks again Bill.
Click to expand...

Great, it is always good to get the stomach full after a successful day.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
113,176
Messages
1,427,957
Members
61,086
Latest member
MrWebster
Back
Top