Electronic Shift & Throttle Control conversion ?

Its easily done - if its finacially viable, well thats up to you.

You can do it easily enough with Mathers Micro-commanders - I have these on my boat as a retro fit. You get a choice of throttle style and the work very well and as far as I am aware with just about any engine. The classic command heads look very similar to the VP version, though you could go for newer looking units.

Cost is going to be about £2500 per engine, so £5k for a twin engine boat
 
Vetus also do electronic controls for Mechanical engines such as yours, not cheap either.

Are your engines on gearboxes or outdrives?
 
I have the Teleflex ke4 controls which came already fitted with my Sealine F33 with kad32 engines . To be honest didn't think of it as a major item when I bought the boat but the controls are an improvement over standard cables for my boat where the distance from the upper helm to the sterndrive engine bay is significant. But on a mid engined boat or for a single lower helm perhaps not such an advantage.
I do like the look and very smooth feel of the controls with switching from upper to lower helm at the press of a button.
As said not cheap. And even more expensive if you have two helm stations.
http://www.seastarsolutions.com/pro...s/electronic-controls/ke-electronic-controls/
http://www.controlsandcables.com/assets/Uploads/KE4-Control.pdf
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MartynG said:
I do like the look and very smooth feel of the controls with switching from upper to lower helm at the press of a button
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Leaving the look aside, I neither like the smooth feel nor the press of a button! :)
I mean, yup, mechanical throttles with push/pull cables are obviously stiffer and require a bit more effort, but what's wrong with that?
And even accepting that this can be an each to their own matter, with mechanical throttles you can switch helms without pressing anything at all!
In fact, it's much more logical to be able to leave one helm in any position and find that position exactly replicated in the other helm - something you can't get with electronic throttles.

All that said, the stronger reason why I always recommend to anyone thinking about this "upgrade" to spend their money in anything else is another: with mechanical engines and mechanical throttles, you have zero interfaces between yourself and the engines - a cable can break, yes, but that's all.
With mechanical engines you have TWO electronic units in between yourself and each engine, plus the cables (albeit shorter).
As a result, you have six things that can go wrong instead of two - how silly is that, on a boat...? :ambivalence:
 
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MapisM said:
how silly is that, on a boat...? :ambivalence:
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I probably wouldn't be thinking of a change from cable to wire myself on the grounds of cost. But my boat came with it fitted. Just expressing the fact that I quite like the ke4 throttles.
You forgot to mention batteries packing up causing throttles to fail !
I would point out motorboats of the Fairline, Princess,Sealine types are built as standard with electronic throttles these days and have done so for about 10 years.

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Yup, but my previous comment was strictly related to retrofitting electronic controls, i.e. pairing them with mechanical engines, which eventually require cable control anyway, hence the electronic units add an unnecessary complexity.
With modern electronically controlled engines, cable throttles would be a nonsense - coming to think of it, I believe it might be even impossible for boatbuilders to install them, assuming that some luddite like myself should ask... :D
 
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Assuming you are having a problem now? Perhaps old and worn gear and throttle cables a stiff set of throttle controls and possible poorly set up ?

You are single station controls and you get none of the "fight" and slack of twin station controls.

Assuming your legs are set up right probably new gear and throttle cables and a new throttle unit set up properly would make the world of difference and give you light and precise controls.
 
Hmmm...given the cost of electronic, I think a new set of cables and fine tuning this winter will be time well spent.
Shame as I really like the finger tip control you get.
 
Think you will find that on most dual throttle Bowden cable type set ups,moving one set of the levers disengages the other.
At least it does on my Vetus setup.
More than once have put my flybridge controls into neutral and popped downstairs only to find the boat rapidly heading towards somewhere solid with no downstairs throttle control.
 
oldgit said:
Think you will find that on most dual throttle Bowden cable type set ups,moving one set of the levers disengages the other.
At least it does on my Vetus setup.
More than once have put my flybridge controls into neutral and popped downstairs only to find the boat rapidly heading towards somewhere solid with no downstairs throttle control.
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Yup, I remember that this matter was already debated some time ago, and I take your word for it, ref this Bowden stuff (which I never came across).
But I can assure you that not only the Teleflex dual lever cable controls on my own boat, but also many others I've seen, work differently.
And arguably, in a much simpler way: any movement of the levers in one of the helm stations is constantly and physically "mirrored" also in the interconnected levers of the other station.
This way, when you move from helm 1 to helm 2, you always find exactly the same situation that you left, without doing anything at all.
Btw, I've also seen hydraulic levers operating exactly in the same ways.
But (for rather obvious reasons) this is physically impossible with electronic throttles.
 
MapisM said:
But (for rather obvious reasons) this is physically impossible with electronic throttles.
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No reason at all that you couldn't have an actuator in the throttle head to move the lever on command. I think a colleague of mine was describing exactly this the other day, though I'm not 100% certain as it was a brief aside in a conversation about something else.

Pete
 
Agreed, in principle it should be feasible, but I'm not aware of any electronic controls with such feature. Are you?
Which btw would be yet another potentially failing bit, if you think about it:
By taking control of one station, the electronics should disengage the actuator from that station, and at the same time engage the actuator(s) on the other station(s).
As I said, I understand electronic controls when mated to electronic engines, but this is definitely an additional complication I'd rather NOT have, even if it were available... :ambivalence:
 
The MAN electronic controls on my boat allows for helm station changes without returning to idle speed in between. I only have to move the controls in a similar position on the assumed station and press the take control key. There is a setting in the control box for enabling this function.
 
Yup, and not only MAN, but most electronic controls do that - actually, I can't think of one which doesn't.
But that's not exactly the same as finding the throttle position exactly replicated before taking control - and regardless of whether you actually take control or not.
 
Ok I see what u mean. Actually my old Bayliner Motor Yacht had this setup where the shifters and trottles moved in parallell on both station, this was indeed handy. But they became very stiff after some years and replacing the cables would have been a nightmare. My previous boat, Phantom38, had also mechanical but these had always to be set to neutral to change control station.
 
MapisM said:
Agreed, in principle it should be feasible, but I'm not aware of any electronic controls with such feature. Are you?
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I thought so, but I'm not sure now :)

In fact, even if I had understood correctly, it would have been the lever for the bucket of a jet drive rather than a typical gear-and-throttle control. Proves it's possible and on the manufacturers' radar, but maybe it's not on the shelves yet for mainstream stuff.

Pete
 
Mapis I see your point about the levers copying each other, but I much prefer it when the throttles being used by the helmsman are the only active ones. This means that someone at another location on the boat cannot take control unless they know which buttons to press, and most guests don't. If you have children on board this reduces risk of them accidentally moving the throttle levers too.

BTW, on my brother's boat he has perfectly mirrored cable-based levers just as you prefer, and the cables operate little potentiometers in the engine room to adjust the electronic john Deere ECUs :-)
 
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