Smartcraft fuel level input high

[Andrew Scott McKinley]

I have twin QSB 5.9 diesels in my 42 powerboat. I’m currently cruising the Bahamas. Two days ago, an hour into a two hr run at 1800 rpm, I got a Smartcraft alarm on my port engine, “Fuel Level Input High”. See pic. This alarm only showed on the gauge on the left side of the helm. I have two Smartcraft gauges. The gauge on the right side showed a green “OK” symbol.

I acknowledged the alarm and continued cruising keeping an eye on things. After 10 minutes the alarm seemed to stop being active and just displayed the red triangle in the upper left hand corner of the gauge. Yesterday, I got periodic “WIF” for the same engine. Both went away after 4-5 minutes. I changed both Racor fuel filters. I’m getting ready to cross back to the U.S. in a week. Any thoughts?

Scotty78

Topic

[Corey Schmidt]

If that is the case then indeed you are more than likely dealing with a “smartCraft Gremlin”…

Perform a factory reset on that specific display and re-configure it correctly as “Diesel Inboard NO TROLL” and go from there…

Assuming fuel level readings are coming up on the screen and are rather accurate?

[Andrew Scott McKinley]

Corey,
I have a single 450 gal fuel tank. It looks like there is a sensor mounted on the top of the tank, see picture.

What baffles me is that I have 2 Smartcraft gauges on the flybridge and 2 at the lower helm station, 4 total. However, only one, (lower helm, port side) gauge is still displaying the triangular, red alarm symbol in the upper left side of the screen. The other 3 gauges all shows the green OK symbol.

Thanks, Scott

[Corey Schmidt]

Andrew Scott McKinley wrote:

Corey,
If by ‘fuel level indication’, you mean how much fuel is in my fuel tank, yes, my Smartcraft has a gauge that indicates ‘gallons in the tank’, ‘gallons used’, etc. I think I’ll preform the factory reset on the screens.

Thanks for the quick response! Scott

Okay but first you will need to understand how the VesselView is “reading” fuel level… there’s basically two different ways: #1 — the VesselView can use a calibration method where you describe the tanks and their size, etc. and the computer uses fuel burn to calculate the fuel decrements… this method is semi-accurate but should not throw any “codes” as it is algorithmic… #2 — You can install float level (240-33 ohms) analog style senders into the tanks and read fuel level % from the senders directly. In this method, you can have faults/alarms because there is physical wiring involved.’

Best to determine your exact setup before resetting anything so you know what’s really going on… and more importantly how it needs to be setup.

[Corey Schmidt]

Do you have fuel level indication on the VesselView displays? If not, then you are probably experiencing some ghost faults on that circuit.

There will be (2) fuel tank level input connections on the Medusa harnesses for each engine… see if you have any wires connected to those connections. If you do not, then you’re definitely experiencing ghost faults… probably would be a good idea to perform a factory reset on the screen(s)…

Good references:

https://www.sbmar.com/articles/understanding-your-smartcraft-1-0-medusa-vessel-adapter-harness/

https://www.sbmar.com/docs/VesselViewManualSept2010.pdf

[Author]

Replies