Anyone have a non Smartcraft K-Plane solution?
Thanks
Steve

What do you run now? Have you looked into this NMEA compatible indicator/converter from Livorsi?



http://www.livorsi.com/catalog/adjus...ndicators.html
The LED indicator can also transmit (Tx) this information via CAN bus to other compatible displays such as Garmin, Lowrance or Raymarine via NMEA 2000®, SmartCraft® (with Gateway) or J1939 protocols.

Or are you looking for digital display options?

you can also use the Livorsi stuff to get the data on a NEMA network and not use the Livorsi indicator panel, if you wanted to see trim on a chartplotter or something. That Livorsi system is super cool but expensive compared to 4 cables.

What's expensive?? I'm looking at options now on my Fountain. I'm tired of the cable's. Let me know please.

if I remember correctly for a twin engine setup drives/tabs around $2500, that buys a lot of cables.

TTT, any updates on this?? Looking to replace my cables but would rather put the indicators onto NMEA 2000 and show them on the GPS. What is the cost and are there any other options???

I haven't followed those "pretty" units any further once I heard the cost. However if you just want to get trim data into another display by NMEA / CAN, there is cheaper options. Good quality rheostats on drives and tabs feeding a analog / digital converter that speaks CAN would accomplish the same.
Resistance values are converted to a digital equivalence, 0-99% and that's assigned a PID # for each unit, and sent to the display where it listed as Port/Sbd - Drive/Tab.
Here is a unit I found for $270 that will do engine and trim data conversion. Plus several others on that page could work also..

http://www.navstore.com/noland-engin...FbNj7AodzWgAlQ

Know I've promised to work on this, but my boat project hasn't progress to this point yet. If someone has a modern Garmin display to test with, I'd be happy to get ya the part numbers and demonstrate how it works. If you can strip wires and use a computer, you can do build these digital trim setups for well under a grand.

I have the Noland unit and like it but it does not supports tabs this time only drive trim. You can make it work but it never makes a decent screen on a garmn (you need to configure for 4 engines on a twin.
Steve

I was going to get the Noland boxes to convert all of my gauges to NMEA and display them on my Garmin. Update my dash a lot I figured if I get rid of most of the gauges.

Good to know Steve. Do you feel the problem related to assigning the correct pids for tabs in the Noland software, or the Garmin doesn't like what it's receiving? That box shows A1-A4 analog inputs, so was thinking that should be sufficient to assign 4 trim indicators. There is other industrial CAN modules out there that might be better suited and easier programing for a specific task.

Did some searching for a saltwater-proof solution to replace those old lifting ram indicator cables. Check out these magnetic "shaftless" linear position transducers for the DIY crowd. Come in 6,12, 18, or 24 inch, and possibly use your old cable mounting hardware.

http://sensing.honeywell.com/product-page?pr_id=30743
Under common use states: Marine steering systems