Mercury Vesselview 403 - how to reset fuel level in tank?

[andoland]

Another question about my new boat...

Bar crushers don't have fuel level sender in the tank. I have a Merc 150 engine with Vesselview 403 gauge. Using this gauge I can set the volume of my tank and have it show the quantity of fuel remaining. As I don't have the fuel level data I have to use the fuel consumption data from the engine.

The process I believe I should be able to do is:
1) set up a fuel tank in the system with the volume set (which I have done)
2) when I fuel up, tell the system how much fuel I have added to the tank.
3) the fuel level gauge should then tell me the remaining fuel level based on the known quantity added into the tank, less fuel used.

To ensure the fuel level is accurate I need to completely fill the tank so I have a known starting point.

But I cannot work out how I am able to tell the system how many litres of fuel are in the tank. There is apparently a way of doing this manually whenever you fuel up, but I cannot find it in the operating manual anywhere.

Does anyone have this system and can explain how I do this?

Thanks

[andoland]

Update - it turns out that it’s not possible to have the Vesselview 403 display fuel remaining based on fuel flow, nor to manually tell it volume of fuel in tank. It will only work with a tank level sensor.

Good news is that it looks like my Garmin chartplotters do have this capability if I connect the Vesselview to the nmea network.

[ranmar850]

This is exactly what I have just done. The Vesselview display ( or Lighthouse app) is just a glorified fuel gauge, not an accurate representation of what should be remaining based on actual fuel flow vs time. It will behave just like a fuel gauge, ie, all over the place, while you are underway in anything but a glass calm lake. You actually can't run it and a separate fuel gauge, system won't allow it.

I had an earlier thread on trying to get the Raymarine Lighthouse Vessel vVew app running on my system, took quite a while and a number of trips to the dealer who sold it to me. Finally running now, looks pretty, doesn't give me anything I had before with the Dashboard app, fuel monitoring, and an external gauge as a crosscheck. Only downfalls to using the fuel remaining feature on your MFD is a) forgetting to manually add after fuelling up, and b) the outside chance someone might siphon you. Fuel Remaining can't take this into account, obviously.

Oh, and to set it up, you need to either start with an empty tank, or take the sensor out of the tank . it needs to start empty, then have 25% added a a time for calibration.

[andoland]

I bought another nmea cable yesterday and connected the Vesselview (which receives all the engine data) to my Garmins. Within 5 minutes I had fuel tank set up on the Garmin, entered how much fuel is in the tank and worked out how to add fuel and/or tell it the tank is full. The Garmin will use fuel flow to calculate remaining fuel in the tank. I have set up the fuel tank level as a data overlay on map screens.
It took me hours of searching and playing with Vesselview to establish that it can't do this simple thing. I think this vesselview 403 costs about $1500 and is now effectively only useful for engine alarms, as all the other typical user information (revs, fuel, temps, pressures, trim, etc) can be shown on the Garmin.

[ranmar850]

Unfortunately, that's how it is. I paid about $700 for the interface unit to be able to get info to the Vesselview app. And you need a dealer to set it up, it uses a dealer-only interface to set it up for the first time. And you also need a dealer to get the tank sender connected to the right place in the Merc loom, there is absolutely NO info in all the Merc instal manuals I could access on the net. Add to that the cost of 3 trips to the dealer (300km return trip) their labour, it's cost me the same as yours. All to get a pretty display which gives me nothing I couldn't get already on my MFD, except for fault codes. Which I could have gotten from the Vesselview mobile device which came with the motor, displayed on my phone.
Oh, it does have a display for trim tabs, but I don't have the sensors. And Engine Trim values are nothing like those displayed on the existing Merc Towpro, which I will continue to use for that function, as it is more accurate.
Cannot recommend.

[CT]

My vesselview 703 trip computer gives me each individual leg, including the fuel burn. Have you looked at that to see if it works on yours?

[Getout]

My Vessel view 502 gives me the option to choose whether it uses the fuel tank sender, or the fuel flow sensor to give fuel usage data.I select the fuel flow sensor. Litres remining is accurate to a couple of litres over a tankful.

[andoland]

I think the 403 is a bit different to the 5 and 7 series Vesselview. It is not a touch screen whereas the others are. I know the 703 is actually a Simrad MFD.

The 403 does display instantaneous fuel burn rate and there is a trip meter which will display fuel used, but for this to be useful I'd have to completely fill the tank each time I refuel and only reset the trip meter at refuelling time.

[Goffiller]

I found my 403 to be a bit cumbersome to use and lacking features. For fuel flow / fuel remaining etc like you are after I use the vessel view mobile app. Way easier than the 403. All other info I get from the MFD these days through the NMEA connnection. Guage is only for faults and trim or me.