Jeez these will take some getting used to!! Why is there a delay when entering forward? 1000hp nearly took the bl..dy pontoon out!! Won't do that again!!!
The lag is while they return to idle. They won't let you crash into gear at anything other than tickover. There was a nice article in MBM about this: having overshot, you give it a fistful in reverse to check the speed, but it delays the gear change. So you panic, and give it even more ahead to cut the speed you got when it finally decided to go astern at half throttle. And so on.
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The way to use them is to put them into gear about 3 seconds before you would normally, and do not leave in gear when close quarter for long, Best advise is go out and practise with them in a clear bit of water untill you get the hang of them. Just remember to take the power off, do not fall into the trap of thinking they are not working and increase power, a few boats have been damaged doing that.
Enjoy they are good when you have the hang of them,
<hr width=100% size=1>Julie ,
IMOSHO of course,/forums/images/icons/smile.gif
Luckily the boat was tied up at the time. Thought it was in neutral 'cause the green light was on!! (oops) Pushed it forward and nothing happened so I pushed it further forward at which point it decided to try and visit Peter's Chandlers ashore!!!! Scared the living bejeezus out of me!! Took it out, played with it and like you say, it's fine when you get used to it.
I think there's much truth in that IOM. We're about to have an EVC boat for the first time. The nice eleccy controls and good mpg will be fine, but I'm worried the engines are too clever.
Eg they have loads of sensors and if one of them trips with a condition that threatens excess wear on the engine it can automatically limit the rpm to a crawl home speed. Now, if I'm being pushed into a lee shore in a bad sea I'd rather have the choice to thrash the engine even if that damages it, because that can be cured by money. Instead there is some electronic gizmo limiting me to 800rpm so saving engine wear but potentially killing me in the process. What I mean is, I want an override to turn off this stuff it it gets too clever. But there is no override!
you'll find delay reduces slightly as gearboxes and engines heat up, or can get longer if very cold. Once you get hang of them, they work fine. If I remember correctly they work by hydraulic actuation on gearboxes, hence delay depending on how thin the oil is.
Does mean you have to think little more ahead when manouvering .
Powerskipper is spot on, I used them for the first time recently (P480) but I had the advantage of Philcool next to me, first thing he taught me, during close quarters, was push forward, then straight back to neutral, by the time youve returned the lever to neutral the thrust forward occurs, then stops, now you do the next movement, and so on. With standard morse controls as soon as you push it forward the boat moves, so you then return it to neutral, and wait to take the next action, same principal just quicker with Morse.
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So what the hell is the advantage they bring, that outweighs the fact that they introduce a delay which could be dangerous to people who aren't use to them?
<hr width=100% size=1>There is no such thing as "fun for the whole family."
Advantages are largely for close quarters...much, much easier to use than stiff old cable controls. The best way to use them is only ever click them into gear and do not use any more power than that. Effectively just remembering that you can never go too slowly when berthing, then you won't have any problems at all...
Main disadvantage, I find, is at sea rather than in the marina or harbour. It is difficcult to make small throttle adjustments in a rough sea, as because there is so little resistance on the throttles as you bounce around over waves you can easily end up with a lot more or a lot less power than you originally wanted.
They would therefore be absolutely hopeless on a racing powerboat. Indeed, on one rough passage, they even bounced around on their own - a problem which was later rectifiied by the dealer as you can apparently stiffen them up a little.
However, they could really do with being like modern car power steering systems, which stiffen up and become more firm as speed increases. But I think this is wishful thinking in the boating world, where they have only just learnt to fit windscreen wipers that are self parking and where even basics like windscreen washers are an extra if available at all...
I used the EC and EDC systems on a couple of boats last year and agree they take some getting used too. I believe the delay is configurable down to about 1 second (check the manual). Inside each control unit is a LED screen and a pair of buttons used for setting up.