Ferry Engine Parameter Monitoring – non Electronic Senders

[Joshua Mafabi]

Good morning,
I am in search of a solution that can monitor ferry Engine Mechanical Parameters RPM, Oil Pressure, Engine temperature, fuel level, consumption etc and this data is to be relayed to a remote (Web based)monitoring system through GSM.
The engines are of various types and using non-electronic old analog displays and the senders are as well.
I found a suitable converter of these signals SMX Digital View.
The ferry typically has 4 Engines spaced apart as shown. The SMX Digital view has RS232 output and NMEA 2000. Having to network and integrate these engines into one system so as to send the Data via a Master Sender could prove to be a challenge.

Is there another type of SMX Digital view Instrument that can output data via RS485 since it covers some distance and is user friendly during integration?, I would like to network up to 4 of these devices on one Vessel (Ferry).
Can NMEA 2K work since our Ferry Engines are located quite some distances apart, what is the maximum distance for NMEA 2000?.
I am looking for a solution which can be networked monitoring at most 4 Engines on one Vessel – These are not close to each other.
Please see attached the picture examples.
Looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks a lot.

Topic

[Joshua Mafabi]

Monitoring of up to 4 Engines on one Ferry

Thanks FireIsland please share with me a type digital switcher that I can use for this purpose.
Thanks

[Joshua Mafabi]

Monitoring of up to 4 Engines on one Ferry

Thanks a lot Corey for your advise, this means I will need 2 GSM Modules per ferry in order to have all the Engines Monitored. Are there NMEA cables of that can serve this purpose (100m)?
Do you also have a solution that can transmit thus Data . What could be the cost of these items.
Tjanks a lot.

[Fireisland1]

How about using a digital switcher. Look at one engine at a time and switch to the next every 10 seconds.

[Corey Schmidt]

Networking 4 engines would be a challenge although I’m sure it can be done. Our SMX device works on the NMEA 2000 CAN bus platform and the maximum backbone cable length is 100 m (328 ft). The only obstacle I see with bridging 4 engines would be to identify them properly. In other words, you’d have to instance the engines 1-4 and then set them up properly on your NMEA 2000 digital MFD equipment. Our SMX product only supports up to three engines (PORT, STBD, CENT) so I think the only way to make the entire network work would be to setup two separate NMEA networks with P&S engines.

Here’s the product manual that can provide much more technical detail:

http://www.sbmar.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SMX-Installation-and-User-Manual-v2.0.pdf

[Author]

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