Help with Hour Meter

[Flyboy01]

The digital tachometer on my Volvo Penta D2-55 control panel is displaying incorrect number of hours on the engine. Otherwise, the tach/meter is working fine. Is the hour info on the LCD display being sent or is perhaps synchronized from an engine component somewhere?? If I wind up having to replace the hour meter, how do you get the new meter to display the actual time the engine has on it?

Thanks for the help.

[DRS]

On my D2 40's there is an optional auxiliary cable and relay. I powered up old school hobbs hour meters off of this. Applied 12 volts to the hour meters before I connected to the engine circuit until the hours matched the engines.

[SailFastTri]

Simple answer, Volvo Penta won't tell you: Its a poorly designed meter prone to failure. They don't last more than about a hundred hours in my limited experience. I replaced my tach twice for this reason and after the second replacement meter failed I gave up. 3 failures for the same reason. Tach works hour mater fails, at first intermittent then total. Every time the same thing.

Keep the tach, buy a mechanical hour meter and find a place to mount it. You can find them rectangular or round, anywhere from $20 to $40.

[Flyboy01]

It looks like that is going to be the way to go. Independent meter, synched by running it up to current hours. I will likely mount this in the engine compartment.

Thanks for the feedback.

[wrwakefield]

FlyBoy,

If you end up going with a 3rd part replacement, check out the offerings from CruzPro. [No affiliation; just a happy customer...]

Here is the link to their tach/hour meter.

They have many products that integrate well into existing instrument clusters.

In case this is useful.

Cheers!

Bill

[SailFastTri]

Originally Posted by wrwakefield

FlyBoy,

If you end up going with a 3rd part replacement, check out the offerings from CruzPro. [No affiliation; just a happy customer...]

Here is the link to their tach/hour meter.

They have many products that integrate well into existing instrument clusters.

In case this is useful.

Cheers!

Bill

No experience with CruzPro, but I'd go with a simple mechanical unit with rotating digits. No LCDs for me.

Something like this

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Flyboy01

The digital tachometer on my Volvo Penta D2-55 control panel is displaying incorrect number of hours on the engine. Otherwise, the tach/meter is working fine. Is the hour info on the LCD display being sent or is perhaps synchronized from an engine component somewhere?? If I wind up having to replace the hour meter, how do you get the new meter to display the actual time the engine has on it?

Thanks for the help.

I would make a log entry and go merrily on your way.

[wrwakefield]

Originally Posted by SailFastTri

No experience with CruzPro, but I'd go with a simple mechanical unit with rotating digits. No LCDs for me.

Something like this

Hi SailFast,

I understand, and am like minded.

However, we are on our 3rd mechanical hour gauge [historically they go 1500-2000 hours...] and since I haven't found any that can be pre-set with a starting count [one of the OP's requirements] I will go digital [hopefully] before #3 fails.

I also like the ability to set alarms and put in on the NMEA network.

Here is a poor photo demonstrating how we keep track of running totals on our mechanical hour meter: [Link provided in case the photo doesn't appear in this post...]



In hopes this is helpful.

Cheers!

Bill