GET ON THE BUS.(Brief Article)

For those of us who grew up believing that to power a light bulb, you had to run a wire from the battery to the bulb, from the bulb to a switch and from the switch back to the battery, things are about to change.

Digital controls are coming and they are coming faster than most of us realize. Mercury Marine, for example, is currently offering digitally controlled instrumentation on many of its V-6 outboards. New sterndrive packages from MerCruiser will also be offering digital options.

Medallion Instruments has had a digital instrumentation system available for a couple of years. Both the Mercury and Medallion systems are fairly basic, allowing a single cable to be "daisy chained" from one instrument to the next and allowing further instrumentation to be added without the need to run independent wiring.

DRIVING THE MAGIC BUS

Teleflex has developed a digital system called "MagicBus" that will be capable of handling a multitude of chores ranging from shift and throttle controls to operating the bilge pump and depthsounders. The system is capable of routing digital information from the engine as well as from sources such as the radar, GPS and chartplotter to one or more screen displays. For instance, you could have a main screen at the helm, but also to have other screens at strategic locations throughout the boat.

The screens can be split to see the display from two or more instruments. Engine information can be displayed either on a liquid crystal display screen or via analog instrumentation, depending on the captain's choice. Twin engine synchronization is also built into the system. The MagicBus system will work with products from any manufacturer that complies with the new software standards established by the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA). The format is called NMEA 2000.

COMPLEX VET SIMPLE