Engine Dashboard

engine32

by Steven Adler [Stevead]

The Engine Dashboard Plugin displays engine parameters, fluid levels and battery status in OpenCPN. It accepts NMEA 0183 RPM (Revolutions), RSA (Rudder Sensor Angle) and XDR (Transducer Measurement) sentences as its input. For sailors with NMEA2000® engine and tank sensors, any release of the TwoCan plugin later then version 1.6 can convert the appropriate messages from NMEA2000® networks to their NMEA 0183 equivalents which can then be displayed by the Engine Dashboard.

The Engine Dashboard displays the following data:

Engine RPM, Oil Pressure, Coolant Temperature, Engine Hours & Alternator Voltage for either single or dual engine vessels.

Fluid levels for Fuel, Water, Oil, Live Well, Grey and Black Waste.

Battery status (voltage and current) for the Start and House batteries.

and Rudder Angle.

It supports both dual and single engine vessels, can display voltage ranges for either 12 or 24 volts DC systems and supports a user configurable maximum RPM range.

engine02

The engine dashboard consumes a subset of NMEA 0183 sentences. For engine speed it may use either RPM or XDR sentences. For Rudder Angle it uses RSA sentences. For XDR sentences, it supports three different transducer naming formats:

TwoCan Plugin

Measurement Transducer Type Measurement Unit Transducer Name1

Engine RPM

T

R

RPM

MAIN, PORT or STBD

Oil pressure

P

P

Pascals

MAIN, PORT or STBD

Water Temperature

C

C

Celsius

MAIN, PORT or STBD

Alternator Voltage

U

V

Volts

MAIN, PORT or STBD

Engine Hours

G

H

Hours2

MAIN, PORT or STBD

Fluid Levels

V

P

Percent3

FUEL, H2O, OIL, LIVE, GREY, BLK

Battery Voltage

U

V

Volts

STRT (Start or Main), HOUS (House or Auxilliary)

Battery Current

U

A

Amperes4

STRT (Start or Main), HOUS (House or Auxilliary)

NMEA 0183 v 4.11

Measurement Transducer Type Measurement Unit Transducer Name^1, 5^

Engine RPM

T

R

RPM

ENGINE#0, ENGINE#1

Oil pressure

P

P

Pascals

ENGINEOIL#0, ENGINEOIL#1

Water Temperature

C

C

Celsius

ENGINE#0, ENGINE#1

Alternator Voltage

U

V

Volts

ALTERNATOR#0, ALTERNATOR#1

Engine Hours

G

null

Hours

ENGINE#0, ENGINE#1

Fluid Levels

V

P

Percent

FUEL#0, FRESHWATER#0, OIL#0, LIVEWELLWATER#0, WASTEWATER#0, BLACKWATER#0

Fluid Levels

E

P

Percent

FUEL#0, FRESHWATER#0, OIL#0, LIVEWELLWATER#0, WASTEWATER#0, BLACKWATER#0

Battery Voltage

U

V

Volts

BATTERY#0 (Start), BATTERY#1 (House

Battery Current

I

A

Amperes

BATTERY#0 (Start), BATTERY#1 (House)

Shipmodul

Measurement Transducer Type Measurement Unit Transducer Name^1, 5^

Engine RPM

T

R

RPM

ENGINE0, ENGINE1

Oil pressure

P

P

Pascals

ENGOILP0, ENGOILP1

Water Temperature

C

C

Celsius

ENGTEMP0, ENGTEMP1

Alternator Voltage

U

V

Volts

ALTVOLT0, ALTVOLT1

Engine Hours

G

null

Hours

ENGHRS0, ENGHRS1

Fluid Levels

V

P

Percent

FUEL0, FRESHWATER0, OIL0, LIVEWELL0, WASTEWATER0, BLACKWATER0

Fluid Levels

E

P

Percent

FUEL0, FRESHWATER0, OIL0, LIVEWELL0, WASTEWATER0, BLACKWATER0

Battery Voltage

U

V

Volts

BATVOLT0 (Start), BATVOLT1 (House)

Battery Current

I

A

Amperes

BATCURR0 (Start), BATCURR1 (House)

1.These names are hardcoded in the Engine Dashboard and mate with the output produced by the TwoCan plugin, Shipmodul gateways and other gateways that support NMEA 0183 v4.11 transducer naming such as Actisense and Maretron. If users receive data from other sources with different transducer names then the NMEA Converter plugin could be used to modify these fields.

2.The use of 'H' to indicate hours is a customised use of the generic transducer type.

3.This originally deviated from the the standard volume measurement unit which is 'M' cubic metres, but is now supported by NMEA 0183 v4.11. In addition NMEA 0183 v4.11 also introduced the measurement unit 'E' using 'P' as percentage capacity.

4.Note this extends the usage of the “U” (Voltage Transducer) to include current measured in Amps.

5. For single engine vessels, instance 0 (eg. ENGINE#0) refers to the main engine. For dual engine vessels instance 0 (eg. ENGINE#0) refers to the port engine and instance 1 (eg. ENGINE#1) refers to the starboard engine.

The engine dashboard is installed from the OpenCPN Preferences dialog under the Plugins tab.

engine01

Similar to the existing Dashboard and Tactics-Dashboard plugins, the Engine Dashboard display can be configured to display a number of different gauges.

engine03

engine04

Examples of NMEA 0183 XDR sentences that may be used by the engine plugin are:

TwoCan format:

$IIXDR,P,158300.00,P,MAIN,C,23.11,C,MAIN,U,13.86,V,MAIN*6A

$IIXDR,T,804.50,R,MAIN*54

$IIXDR,G,1.16,H,MAIN*52

NMEA 0183 v4.11 format:

$IIXDR,P,100300.00,P,ENGINEOIL#0,C,85.0,C,ENGINE#0,U,26.44,V,ALTERNATOR#0*09

$IIXDR,P,123000.00,P,ENGINEOIL#1,C,95.0,C,ENGINE#1,U,25.00,V,ALTERNATOR#1*08

$IIXDR,G,200,,ENGINE#0,G,250,,ENGINE#1*4A

$IIXDR,T,800.0,R,ENGINE#0*73

$IIXDR,T,900.0,R,ENGINE#1*73

$IIXDR,U,27.5,V,BATTERY#0,U,26.0,V,BATTERY#1*4B

$IIXDR,E,50.00,P,FUEL#0*79

$IIXDR,E,75.00,P,FRESHWATER#0*7B

Shipmodul format:

$ERXDR,P,100300.00,P,ENGOILP0,C,85.0,C,ENGTEMP0,U,25.44,V,ALTVOLT0*32

$ERXDR,G,300,,ENGHRS0*18

$ERXDR,T,800.0,R,ENGINE0*47

$ERXDR,U,25.4,V,BATVOLT0,I,4.5,A,BATCURR0*77

$ERXDR,E,50.00,P,FUEL0*4D

$ERXDR,E,75.00,P,FRESHWATER0*4F

Note that the Engine Dashboard is agnostic to the two character NMEA talkerID prefix.

If you have any problems, please post questions on the OpenCPN forum or send an email to twocanplugin@hotmail.com