electronic controls

[sharppractice]

Used a boat with electronic controls recently.. I wish i had not ..Showed me the old morse cable controls on the flybridge of mine are a bit hard work.Greased and lubed cables where possible .what is the best alternative to the cable system .

 

[prv]

what is the best alternative to the cable system .

Electronics, apparently

Pete

 

[MapisM]

old morse cable controls on the flybridge of mine are a bit hard work

Wow, two folks posting about the same subject in such short timeframe, talk about epidemic laziness...
Mind, not that I don't understand it - I'm a laziness master, in general.
But having been at sea not later than yesterday on a boat fitted with Kobelt controls (which are among the best, imho), I know that dual lever cable throttles is one of the things I would miss from my old tub!

 

[sharppractice]

many apologies for recent epidemic .a quick question from lunchtime at work....will beat myself with a stick and wear a horsehair shirt..

 

[MapisM]

C'mon, no need to feel so sorry for yourself...
...a good beat with the with the stick will suffice!

 

[BruceK]

I recently went through the palaver of changing gear morse cables because my manual controls are also a bit stiff and old. Didn't quite go to plan but that's another story. I had the opportunity to try the electronic jobbies on a Princess while assisting anchoring. Silky smooth but I thought it lacked a bit of the finesse you get from morse. Could all be in my head and what I'm used to but when it went into gear it was an abrupt and sudden surge which I found remote. A bit like when power steering (non progressive) first came in on cars. No feed back. As I write this it doesn't quite make sense, but it's how it felt. I am a bit more pacified with my morse cables now.

 

[MapisM]

Silky smooth but I thought it lacked a bit of the finesse you get from morse. Could all be in my head....

Nope, I don't think it is.
Actually, I doubt that the gearbox smoothness as such can depend on the type of controls: I suppose you were not comparing exactly the same gearboxes driven by morse cable vs. driven by electronic actuators, right? Imho, that's more likely to depend on each particular gearbox, and on the engine idle rpm.

But with cable levers, the feeling is pretty much akin to being in the engine room and move the gearbox lever directly with your hand, i.e. you can feel instantly and with a solid feedback what's happening.
All the electronic controls I tried have a more or less noticeable delay (to the point, with some of them, of having enough time to fear in your head that the thing isn't working, even if it's only a matter of a second and a half or whatever!), and none of them - for very obvious reasons - give any sort of positive feedback.
And this, depending on how smooth the gearbox is (and how reactive the boat), might be misleading.
On my boat, the engines have a very low idle speed, the gearboxes are very smooth and it takes a while before the boat begins moving, after you put one engine in gear.
With morse controls, also from the f/b, my hands know instantly and positively when the fwd or reverse gear are engaged or disengaged, even if you could hardly tell from any boat movements, for quite a few seconds.

 

[BruceK]

Quite likely nonetheless the perception felt the same. My revs are also very low by comparison to the Princess I was in at least but other than that my KAD42 290DPs to his KAD 43 and later 290 DPs. You are right with the delay though. It feels like forever when you're making many small adjustments.