Beta engine and NMEA 2k?

[Captain Bill]

I put a NoLand RS-11 on my old Yanmars. I had no water temperature or oil pressure gauges, just the idiot lights. I run it on a Seatalkng bus using a an nmea 2K to Seatalk NG adapter cable. The only problem I ran into was the fact that the electronics are too fast for the engine. The oil pressure gauge was all over the map because the RS11 was reading the pressure pulses from the lobes of the oil pump. Depending on where the lobes were positioned at the the time the RS11 took the reading I would get a different value. The inertia in an analog gauge automatically smooths this out. I talked to the guys at NoLand and they agreed that I should put a capacitor on the oil pressure leads to simulate the inertia in the mechanical gauge. Problem solved. There was no issue interfacing the unit to my Raymarine C-series MFD. All of the readings showed up on the engine data page on the first try. Using the enclosed software and a USB cable you define each channel and calibrate it. You can also see the NMEA sentences the unit is putting out for each channel. The software comes on a mini CD so you do need to be able to read a cd. I haven't looked at their web site lately but hopefully they have made the software downloadable since CD drives are becoming much less common.

[Davidhoy]

Initial installation of the AlbaCombi went very well. I connected it to the NMEA 2000 network, installed a pair of Wema senders in my diesel tanks and wired them up to the unit, plugged in my laptop to configure everything, then fired up my Garmin chart plotter and was able to get both diesel tank levels on the MFD. Going to connect the engine sensors (RPM, water temp, oil pressure and alternator voltage) tomorrow, then I should have all the info I need at my fingertips. So far so good, it was a snap to configure the analog resistive output from the level senders to send the appropriate NMEA 2000 PGNs.

[Hartleycruiser]

Davidhoy

How did you go with the rest of your install . I am interested in the AlbaCombi unit . Haven't seen a lot of info on them.

Greg

[Davidhoy]

Originally Posted by Hartleycruiser

Davidhoy

How did you go with the rest of your install . I am interested in the AlbaCombi unit . Haven't seen a lot of info on them.

Greg

Pretty good, though my boat has been at the dock a lot the past year while I work on fixing "deferred maintenance" issues and do some system upgrades, so I have not had it running that much. But it was working well before all these other jobs got in the way of actually using the boat for its intended purpose.

My one complaint is that I tried to contact the manufacturer with some questions, and never got a response. Nothing to do with the core functionality, that all works.

Actually I have another complaint, more of a nit-pick though. The unit requires a DIN rail to mount it, rather than having some simple screw holes. I had to special-order a length of aluminum DIN rail, cut it to length, secure it to the bulkhead, then clip the unit to the rail. Minor frustration.

Regards,
David.

[OldChris]

Guys-I put the ALBA-COMBI in my boat 18 months ago. I ordered several and they all included the DIN rail as part of the packaging.

The manufacturer is located in either Spain or Portugal and they were quite responsive to me when I had a question but if you're trying to call, remember, they are small and nine hours ahead of us.

My system goes into the vessel's pc system and also into the built in touch screens at the helm from Simrad/B&G. I love it and it has worked flawlessly once properly set up.

Also wanted to mention you have the option of slowing the refresh rate in the settings so readings don't bounce around too much as in Capt Bill's case with his needing to add a capacitor to get his oil pressure.

Best regards,
Bill