Upgrade smartcraft gauges to Vesselview

jmoen438

2005 342 FV
I believe I have smartcraft gauges as they have the engine hours in the tachometers. How do I go about upgrading them to vesselview on an in dash monitor?

YYZRC

Post a pic of your gauges - they sound like normal (not smartcraft) gauges. Most Rinkers of that era had Faria gauges. 

Ian

They are likely analog gauges, mine shows the hours too and are way off what the ECM says.

aero3113

Ian said:

They are likely analog gauges, mine shows the hours too and are way off what the ECM says.

I replaced all of my gauges with new. The hours went to 0 with the new gauges. Only way to get true hours are with a scanner. Even a scan of your computer can be incorrect. If an engine was rebuilt or replaced and the original computer was used, it’s still going to read the old engine hours.

Ian

True but I know all mine is original.

Black_Diamond

VV-903

2005 Merc engines will be SmartCraft ready.  You need the cables from the engines, each go to a separate J box, then the cable that connects both J boxes to one output.  For the VV-903 you need the NEMA-2000 backbone too.  Pretty much plug and play. There is set up on the VV itself.  I added in A/D converters to have the fuel tank sending units feed into the VV too. It is a sweet set up.  

oscar1

it looks great

renrab

Black_Diamond said:

VV-903

2005 Merc engines will be SmartCraft ready.  You need the cables from the engines, each go to a separate J box, then the cable that connects both J boxes to one output.  For the VV-903 you need the NEMA-2000 backbone too.  Pretty much plug and play. There is set up on the VV itself.  I added in A/D converters to have the fuel tank sending units feed into the VV too. It is a sweet set up.  

That looks great @Black_Diamond, I see yours was a 2003, mine is a 2002 with Smartcraft logo's on the engine covers, I am going to do some more digging but am I in a similar situation to what you had to do above? Would love to clean up the dash and get a replacement depth gauge (current Lowrance transducer is broken I believe).

Black_Diamond

As long as your engines are SmartCraft, it’s relatively straight forward.  Not cheap, but was worth it.  

jmoen438

Black diamond, that’s exactly the set up I’m looking for! What did you use for a tablet?

YYZRC

It’s not a tablet, it’s a chartplotter made by Simrad and rebranded by Mercury. VesselView 903. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/182857232236?epid=1761266091&hash=item2a9323ef6c:g:JZoAAOSwCFlbczP1

tricountytrail

YYZRC said:

It’s not a tablet, it’s a chartplotter made by Simrad and rebranded by Mercury. VesselView 903. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/182857232236?epid=1761266091&hash=item2a9323ef6c:g:JZoAAOSwCFlbczP1

Just a follow up? I want to be sure I can read all error codes, from my Simrad GO9 once I connect it to my connect it correctly to both engines and rename the Port engine CityID changed to PORT.

YYZRC

I don’t know of a way to display error codes with the GO9. This mercury doc suggests that it’s possible:

Black_Diamond

You need the VV link for the Vv903 for sure. It will show all the error codes.