Beta Marine engine hours display

[Wandering Star]

The previous owner of my boat had installed a brand new Beta Marine 16 engine In the boat. Unfortunately he passed away a couple of years later and the boat was stored ashore for a few years before I purchased her. I was told the engine had only been run for a very short period after the professional installation of the new engine, 30 hours was mentioned and cosmetically, the engine looks like new.

The engine hours counter though is very faded and hardly readable which I understand to be a common problem with this particular display, however, yesterday I took the trouble to look very carefully at the display and it appears to read 3412 hours. The cosmetic condition of the engine and the known (proveable) history of the engine installation & the boat useage would suggest that’s an impossibly high number of engine hours.

I’m curious and wonder whether the display is showing hours & parts of an hour separated by a dot which I can’t see? Or whether the display is just showing any old numbers because it’s broken or whether due to not having had any power applied for at least 5 years it’s gone bananas? what do you think?

 

[Emmark]

Is it possible the engine was new and the rev counter etc second hand or possibly the engine was a reconditioned one?

 

[Pye_End]

I’m curious and wonder whether the display is showing hours & parts of an hour separated by a dot which I can’t see? Or whether the display is just showing any old numbers because it’s broken or whether due to not having had any power applied for at least 5 years it’s gone bananas? what do you think?

Mine is very occasionally readable, and roughly matches up with an additional one I put in when it started being hard to read. Yes to decimal point.

 

[Wandering Star]

Unfortunately not, the engine was replaced with “package” which included a new Beta panel and in fact included new everything including stern gear & prop - all done professionally (original invoice provided).

 

[MoodySabre]

I have a new Beta 30. The display is to one decimal place. Perhaps you are seeing 34.2

 

[Wandering Star]

Mine is very occasionally readable, and roughly matches up with an additional one I put in when it started being hard to read. Yes to decimal point.

Oh, thanks for this, yes, that’s what I thought - a decimal point would certainly make the hours more believable.

 

[Wandering Star]

Thanks for confirming this, I’ll check again at the weekend but I think you & Pye-End are correct.

 

[PetiteFleur]

Mine has also faded after 10 yrs, I could just discern the figures in the correct light and angle. I then bought a cheapy mechanical hour counter from ebay and wired in parallel and added a label to tell any new owner to add on XXX to the new counter. Fitted in the engine compartment.

 

[LittleSister]

I can't remember the details, but it is possible to replace the display. The Beta's hours counter is separate from and unaffected by the display's demise, so with a new display the correct total hours (including those counted by the previous display, and the period it was unreadable) will be revealed.

The display can also be affected by a poor connection to the rest of the gubbins (ISTR theres some sort of plug in connector), which a bit of jostling and WD40 or the like should sort, but the displays do tend to conk out after a while. (Some Volvos and some other brands have the same type of problem.) Note that if you can't readily find a replacement display that will fit in the original opening and fittings, a different shaped/sized one could perhaps be mounted remotely and electrically connected in place of the original.

 

[Boater Sam]

WD40 can be the kiss of death to many things, plastic and electronic.

 

[Amlov]

I can't remember the details, but it is possible to replace the display. The Beta's hours counter is separate from and unaffected by the display's demise, so with a new display the correct total hours (including those counted by the previous display, and the period it was unreadable) will be revealed.

The display can also be affected by a poor connection to the rest of the gubbins (ISTR theres some sort of plug in connector), which a bit of jostling and WD40 or the like should sort, but the displays do tend to conk out after a while. (Some Volvos and some other brands have the same type of problem.) Note that if you can't readily find a replacement display that will fit in the original opening and fittings, a different shaped/sized one could perhaps be mounted remotely and electrically connected in place of the original.

It is a fairly simple job to replace the hours display and, as you say, the engine hours are stored elsewhere to be displayed on the new display.

I bought mine from AK Speedo AK Speedo

 

[Babylon]

It is extremely unlikely that your engine has done over 3,000 hours - you'd know that from a visual inspection and from running it!

My Beta was fitted 12 years ago and has done 654.0 hours. As you can see from the photo just taken the decimal point is very hard to see, but it is there. The reason the display isn't faded is simply because it is inside the hatch so gets very little UV etc.

Your engine has only done 34 DECIMAL 2 hours.

 

[TwoFish]

Your engine has only done 34 DECIMAL 2 hours.

Surely 341 DECIMAL 2 hours?

Thanks for this thread folks. It led me to fixing our engine hours display on our Beta 28 2AB’V’W panel and so getting positive confirmation of the (low) engine hours on our relatively recently purchased boat.

@Amlov. Thank you for the A K Speedo link. I ordered from them, delivery was very quick and the fix was indeed not particularly difficult to do.

 

[Supertramp]

My Beta displays (two panels) sometimes become readable when the engine has run for several hours. 15 years old. I did as PetiteFleur and added a mechanical counter. If you leave it coupled to a 12v source it steadily counts hours. I let it count for week or two until the numbers matched.

 

[Babylon]

Surely 341 DECIMAL 2 hours?

Maybe, but we're wasting our time speculating because the OP simply hasn't given us sufficient information - i.e. how long has he owned the boat and used the engine himself?

If he purchased the boat say 5 years ago, when it then had only 30hrs on the engine, and has used the engine for about 60 hours per year, then 341 hours would stack up - but if he's only just bought it then hundreds of hours would be nonsense.

We need more info.

PS: in my experience the Beta panel's engine-hours display is extremely accurate.

 

[Momac]

I replaced the displays in two vdo (Volvo Penta) tachometers last winter.
The display is hours and tenths of an hour.

 

[pioneer]

I'm just fitting a cheapy analogue hours run meter to my Beta14. Can anyone confirm which terminals on the stop/heat/start/run switch i should connect the +ve and -ve cables to?
I have decided to fit this to duplicate the panel display as with advancing years it gets harder to bend down to read the digital display.
TIA

Adrian

 

[Stemar]

Watch out for the starter switches on old engine panels. Last year, one of mine stuck in the start position and I didn't realise it until I got to my mooring, by which time things were getting smoky and I'd fried the starter.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

Maybe, but we're wasting our time speculating because the OP simply hasn't given us sufficient information - i.e. how long has he owned the boat and used the engine himself?

If he purchased the boat say 5 years ago, when it then had only 30hrs on the engine, and has used the engine for about 60 hours per year, then 341 hours would stack up - but if he's only just bought it then hundreds of hours would be nonsense.

We need more info.

PS: in my experience the Beta panel's engine-hours display is extremely accurate.

The display gives one decimal point. I had this issue with a failure under warranty and as I could never understand how many hours I had run. Beta wondered if I had done a lot of hours, which possibly I had as I had gone from south cornwall to Brittany and Northern Scotland and the Island sometimes in adverse weather or pushing a time slot, so I needed them to explain their gauge.

3412 means 341 hours and a tenth. Which is you think of it in motor vehicle terms is some thing one or two years use and about 17000 land miles at 50mph

 

[bluerm166]

I'm just fitting a cheapy analogue hours run meter to my Beta14. Can anyone confirm which terminals on the stop/heat/start/run switch i should connect the +ve and -ve cables to?
I have decided to fit this to duplicate the panel display as with advancing years it gets harder to bend down to read the digital display.
TIA

Adrian

This is where the wires from my separate retrofitted hours guage are connected .
A red wire to terminal AC on the key switch.So sharing with a 1mm brown running from the 'IGN EXCITATION' terminal on the alternator.
A black wire piggybacked onto a spade on the green indicator.So sharing with an existing 1mm black that runs to 'BATTERY -VE' on the starter motor.
I say nothing about polarity except that my guage works.