engine dials Which dials are most useful/useless you swear by?

[James_P]

Hi all,

I know some boats the only gauge is almost what you feel through your feet and some boats have as many dials as an old aeroplane.

 

So what do swear by and which ones are only useful in 'theory'?

 

As show in the pic the last owner never finished the back cabin of the trad and most of the dials were never connected. 

 

So it needs sorting and I want to sort it out right.

 

Love to hear your thought/opinions and prejudices on the matter!

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

I can't see any dials from the steering position

[Laurie Booth]

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Them labels remind me of when I was child. 
Everything seemed to be labelled like that. 
It was a plastic ribbon wasn’t it that was fed through a hand held thing where you chose and punched the letters?

I want one. 

 

4 minutes ago, Laurie Booth said:

Submarine?

[PeterF]

Dymo tape

[Laurie Booth]

3 minutes ago, Goliath said:

Them labels remind me of when I was child. 
Everything seemed to be labelled like that. 
It was a plastic ribbon wasn’t it that was fed through a hand held thing where you chose and punched the letters?

I want one. 

 

Submarine?

Yep

 

[PeterF]

Domestic battery voltmeter and ammeter so you know when they have been fully charged.

[Slim]

5 minutes ago, PeterF said:

Dymo tape

Still got one complete with tapes. Not sure if the adhesive backing still grips.

 

To answer the original question the only two essential guages are water temperature  and oil pressure.  Having said that neither my first car nor my last ice car had either

 

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Slim

[James_P]

So are fuel and rev gauges not realy that needed in practise?

[Scholar Gypsy]

7 hours ago, James_P said:

So are fuel and rev gauges not realy that needed in practise?

My rev counter has not worked for over 20 years.  If you need to, you can measure RPM by listening to the engine (I use an app called Gstrings, designed for musicians).  On a four cylinder four stroke diesel, 50 Hz is 1500 RPM (50 x 60 / 2 - each cylinder goes bang once every two revolutions of the crankshaft). 

I assess the fuel situation by using the hour counter. 80 hours cruising since the last fill is about 120 litres and I start to get nervous, as the nominal capacity of my tank is about 170 litres.

[GUMPY]

The Voltmeter and ammeters in the picture need to be binned they are useless. If you want volts / amps then a proper shunt meter displaying both is the way forwards.

Oil pressure and engine temp are useful.

I use my rev counter / hours counter but some don't.

 

[Tony Brooks]

8 hours ago, PeterF said:

Domestic battery voltmeter and ammeter so you know when they have been fully charged.

 But not the ones shown, they are for boy racers and there is no way you can read them to 0.1 volt. They look pretty, though. Same for the ammeter if you want to us eit to see when the batteries are fully charged. Both need to be digital and accurate.

 

I like an engine temperature gauge, probably related to running heat exchanger boats where a blocked sea inlet caused an overheat quickly. Oil pressure gauges seem pointless to me on modern engines, a warning light should be sufficient but be it oil pressure sender or switch it is those that cause the vast majority of oil pressure issued on moderately well maintained engines.

 

On a wet exhaust forward or control boat, I would like an exhaust temperature warning, so I was informed of a raw water failure before the engine overheated and the exhaust hose started to char.

[Hudds Lad]

9 hours ago, Laurie Booth said:

Loving that pic, looks like an HR Giger

[GUMPY]

Possibly the most useful "dial" I have is the one on my slide.

A GPS unit, enables me to monitor my speed and stay within the limits.

When on the canals it also allows me to see when more throttle equals less speed.

[Bee]

The only 'extra' I would bother with after the usual oil pressure and temp gauge would be an exhaust temp gauge and that is only useful on a boat like ours with heat exchanger cooling - it draws canal water in and spits it out the wet exhaust, if the inlet clogs with weed then the exhaust temp rises rapidly and I don't like really hot things happening like that.

[ditchcrawler]

9 hours ago, James_P said:

So are fuel and rev gauges not realy that needed in practise?

My fuel gauge is a stick, but I normally just look down the filler and guess

 

[Rob-M]

11 hours ago, Goliath said:

Them labels remind me of when I was child. 
Everything seemed to be labelled like that. 
It was a plastic ribbon wasn’t it that was fed through a hand held thing where you chose and punched the letters?

I want one. 

 

Submarine?

Submarine U-Boat 110 according to Google.

[David Schweizer]

I had an ammeter, one voltmeter , which could be switched between batteries, plus engine temperature, oil pressure and hourmeter on Helvetia, but decent quality ones. I did try Durite but they were more cosmetic than useful, and were swiftly replaced.

 

Edited May 18, 2023 by David Schweizer

[magnetman]

Eyes, ears and nose. 

 

Temperature gauge is useful but one can generally get an idea of overheating from the antifreeze smell. 

 

A warning lamp for low oil pressure and one for high coolant temperature are useful. 

 

Those round things with needles or digital readouts are just worry gauges. 

 

 

Yars ago they used to put a special paint on parts of the engine which would begin to melt if it started getting too hot. Thus alerting the engineer via his sense of smell before damage occured. 

 

 

[Slim]

11 hours ago, James_P said:

So are fuel and rev gauges not realy that needed in practise?

In my opinion, no. Revs judged by ear and experience, fuel by a length of stick.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

I have an in built dial that tells me when it’s beer O’clock. 
Don’t know what I’d do without it. 

[magnetman]

It is always beer o'clock. 

[IanD]

31 minutes ago, Slim said:

In my opinion, no. Revs judged by ear and experience, fuel by a length of stick.

You could even ask why rpm matters on the canals, when what really matters is how fast you're going and how much wash you're making... 😉

[jonathanA]

sell all the durite gauges to someone who will buy on the name and pay silly money.   That said I would keep the voltmeters as  knowing that the alternator(s) are working and an idea of battery condition is essential IMO.  Depending on your use (holiday use, extended cruising or liveaboard) will determine the level of monitoring you need and if liveaboard almost certainly you will need much better monitoring than voltmeter. those type of ammeters are useless (unless they are the shunt type and even then a bit limited ) 

 

water temp is the other thing as you really want to know there is problem before its terminal for your engine or just so you know that your cauliflower is getting nice and hot so there will be hot water...  

 

Oil pressure is a nice to have, but can lead to anxiety when the sender fails (as do the switches for the warning lamp) 

 

I agree with Tony those simple voltmeters aren't really accurate enough and its easy to get some cheap digital ones off ebay for not much money that will read to at least one decimal place, but as i say depends on your needs they may be fine if you just venture out of a marina now and then. 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2023 by jonathanA
sp

[magnetman]

On really quiet installations it is useful to know if the engine is still running when knocked down to tickover and hasn't stalled.

Either a light or a rev counter are handy for this. The Beta marine standard panel just has rev counter and uses lights for other functions. Nice and tidy. 

I'd have thought rpm monitor would be good for electric drive as  way of judging if the prop is fouled. RPM v current drawn. 

Edited May 18, 2023 by magnetman