May 14, 2018
“So, what else have you guys been up to?” we’re asked.
This…
We ordered a new, custom switch panel from Blue Sea Systems. It’s a pretty neat deal. You design your custom panel online with their web interface. When you’re done, you get a pretty picture of what it’ll look like. Here’s ours…
After we placed our order, we got this proposed wiring diagram…
The panel, including the OLED, four tank gauge and four ultrasonic senders, was about $1500 US. Go2Marine gave us a very good price!
I think the tank gauges were a mistake. I have always loved Blue Sea products, but in my opinion, they messed up with this product. It’s not very accurate and the calibration modes don’t work well, or not at all in some cases. After we got the senders installed in the tank (big job), and we called their tech support to ask why the readings were so bad and they informed us that for small tanks, we needed to drill holes in the senders. To do that, we’d have to remove them from the tanks, drill, and reinstall! Thanks! You could have put that in the instructions!
We finally have them set up pretty well. I think this gauge will be better than the Tank Tender we’ve used for 15 plus years. (Tank Tender: When it was calibrated, it worked really well, but keeping it calibrated was difficult. If the gauge was ever over-pressured, it would change the calibration, or worse, break the gauge. Calibration was HARD.)
Putting this new panel in was a huge job – basically rewiring a lot of Legacy. But it was so worth the effort. Our old panel was a mess with wires running chaotically and so tight that opening the old panel for trouble shooting often pulled wires off the backs of switches. Only about half the switches were still working.
The new wiring isn’t perfect but it’s so much better, and we can now open the panel without ripping wires off the switches (not that we should need to open this often).
What I learned, or what I should have done differently…
I connected the Blue Sea M2 Tank Monitor to the Panel Lights breaker. When the lights are on, the gauge is on. I should have put it on its own breaker, or maybe a momentary switch.
It might have been better to connect both the tank monitor and panel lights to a momentary, push-button switch. Neither really needs to be left on.
I would not buy the Blue Sea M2 Tank Monitor again. It just isn’t a very good unit. I would not recommend it to anyone.
I might have figured out a better way to run the really big power cables to the panel (12 volt master and cockpit electric winch). They’re not bad the way I have them, but they could be better. I used welding cable which is more flexible with it’s hundreds of small wire strands. That helps. The issue is that these cables need to flex when opening and closing the switch panel door, without pulling excessively, rubbing on other stuff, or getting caught in the door. It’s best to run them so that they twist instead of bend when the door is moved.
