Multifunction Guage

[99yam40]

we just had a thread about pinched wires in the clamp at the motor, but is the trim harness separate from the 10 pin ?
either way they both would need to go thru that bushing/clamp leaving the motor

[TownsendsFJR1300]

Agree
The strange thing is this does not appear as an intermittent fault as on and off; but rather the guage brightness smoothly transitions gradually from bright to dim and back again in the one trim stroke Like a household light dimmer screwed slowly clockwise then slowly anticlockwise again.

Yep, forgot about that. Might try (if possible), un-plugging wires till you find the "gauge" wire (and now know the color specifically).

Then "hot wire" a lead in the area of the engine, starting at say 1' and extending outwards.. That gauge will fire up once you isolate the "problem wire"/area.

[DennisG01]

Not being super savy with this stuff, could the trim sensor be shorting to ground somehow? What happens if you remove the sensor from the bracket and then trim the engine? Meaning, get the sensor "movement" out of the picture (eliminate it as a moving variable). If the gauge now works properly, you know the issue is with the trim sensor and/or it's wiring. If the gauge is still acting funky, then you can look to other areas, as mentioned. Also, play around with moving the trim lever manually - I think you mentioned this - but it would be interesting to see what happens doing that, as well.

[zenoahphobic]

Not being super savy with this stuff, could the trim sensor be shorting to ground somehow? What happens if you remove the sensor from the bracket and then trim the engine? Meaning, get the sensor "movement" out of the picture (eliminate it as a moving variable). If the gauge now works properly, you know the issue is with the trim sensor and/or it's wiring. If the gauge is still acting funky, then you can look to other areas, as mentioned. Also, play around with moving the trim lever manually - I think you mentioned this - but it would be interesting to see what happens doing that, as well.

I’m getting around to that sensor and wiring. Need sometime to move the boat to lift the engine fully and clean around that sensor (difficult to get to) and don’t want to mess up my driveway.

And Yam99 I am mindful of the clamping right at the engine cowling, it has been right since I have had the boat but can’t vouch for no mistreatment in previous life. Note in that thread it took sometime to manifest as a fault. Maybe mine is the same; makes you understand that wiring may not last “the life of the engine”. One thing I have happening there is that the cover (vacuum cleaner hose) has shrunk and has come off the rubber grommet, leaving the cables at that gap to flex more perhaps. I have felt and squeezed the wires, and yes ten pin loom plus two separate wires (group of three I think the trim sensor; and another group of two I think ). Maybe there is a little kink in the 10 pin, I am not into destructive testing yet. To be really good at this type of diagnostics, one also needs to make up at least three long (4meters?) to do bypasses, and resistance measuring to pinpoint the exact faulty wire(s). It well may be feasible to leave the bypass wires permanently in place, if that is where the problem lies, so they need to be up to standard. Out shopping now.

[zenoahphobic]

I have spent some time chasing connection or wire faults, albeit primitively to no avail, and am beginning to draw the conclusion the meter is faulty.

This is because I found no fault with trim sender (smoothly changed or divided the potentiometer of the total 950 ohms or so, and was continuous to the gauge connector.
I critically looked into the screen and can see some bleeding of the liquid crystal behind the printing on the screen.

Although the trim sender movement can be partially tracked, I concluded that it’s influence on the brightening and fading is just as a result of how it influences the voltage or current draw internally given that extremely small power is needed to light up a segment of liquid crystal. Maybe even an internal fault.

We have had extreme heat and that gauge has been exposed to the sun (others have also but display as new or always. It may be some polarisation loss, that looks like that may be able to be fixed, but the leakage (albeit small) apparently can’t be fixed.

Looking for new replacement, and looking if anyone in Australia does repairs that Boscoe alluded me to.

It’s often said things need to be made to meet “Australian Conditions”, apparently we have harshest in the world. Can’t stop the heat but maybe I should shade or cover these gauges when not in use.

[boscoe99]

If the gauge works just fine on a bench, when powered directly by a battery, then the gauge is not faulty.

With the gauge on the bench, and with power and ground applied to the yellow and black wires respectively, ground the sender wire. The trim bars should move from one position to the other. Remove the ground wire from the sender wire and the bars should go back to their original position.

See what happens.

[zenoahphobic]

If the gauge works just fine on a bench, when powered directly by a battery, then the gauge is not faulty.

With the gauge on the bench, and with power and ground applied to the yellow and black wires respectively, ground the sender wire. The trim bars should move from one position to the other. Remove the ground wire from the sender wire and the bars should go back to their original position.

See what happens.

Took the gauge completely out and put it on my bench and connected it to my power supply, all pigtail leads and the two connector ends sticking up in air separated.
At turn on, as described earlier it settled on what it always did, although seemingly dimmer in my dark garage ( this probably also an indicator).

This time I waited and the screen by itself started to fade away after a while! Turn it off, waited, turned it on: it lit up like before and after awhile faded away again.
As there were no inputs only + and -, I could probably stop here as the gauge appears to be loosing its battle hanging onto life (20 years old).

I had enough time though between switching on and off, to test the trim sensor input. Between black and orange was 4.92v, that didn’t vary when I adjusted the variable power supply down to 8v.
I wasn’t too sure what you meant, but I touched the pink (slider of the potentiometer ) (3 wire input). No trim bars appeared, similarly bringing the pink to the orange (+5v) no bars appeared. I think I could probably wire in a completely different 1 k ohm pot and find the area where the bars come in and fade-away again and come back.
Incidently the actual trim sender measured 930 ohm and its stops left 200 ohms or so not used at either end (pink wire scribed about 500 ohm or so)

I don’t know exactly what the figures should be though.
Gauge may show things that are hard to see, tilting it around and angle seems to show things faintly, maybe that “UV polarisation” that I have not really heard before, can be corrected, don’t know.

[99yam40]

seems strange that you did not have the fading while in your boat until you hit the T&T, but it does now.
are you sure the power supply is keeping a good 12 v to the gauge when this happens?

I would contact gauge saver like Boscoe replied on Post #2 to see what they say they can do for you.
I would not think it would cost anything to ask.
they may have replacents or b able to repair yours.

I am not sure what the cost of shipping etc would be to down under

[zenoahphobic]

seems strange that you did not have the fading while in your boat until you hit the T&T, but it does now.
are you sure the power supply is keeping a good 12 v to the gauge when this happens?

I would contact gauge saver like Boscoe replied on Post #2 to see what they say they can do for you.
I would not think it would cost anything to ask.
they may have replacents or b able to repair yours.

I am not sure what the cost of shipping etc would be to down under

It seems to me that the gauge has a process it goes through (boot up?) and is quite slow at it, and probably hardly noticed when one normally starts the engine when it is in a boat.
And probably is slow to do its checks, because nothing is attached and open circuit(s) it interprets as faults and wants to be sure(?). Makes a bit of sense, why would one instal a guage with no inputs, given that they are there to tell us something.

Secondly, the bridging of the trim centre to earth (zero) and then to full voltage (+5v) is not what occurs when in the boat, as the trim takes quite a while for the engine (the trim pot) to move its full range. Ie that voltage change input occurs extremely slowly, I remember the LCD trim bars did take time to stack up, and to reduce one by one, when all was good.

Since, I have been looking at what GaugeSaver does. There is quite an extensive thread where he is on THT repairing for their members, with heaps of pictures: replacing polarised filter screens and light blocking filters bringing back to life all manner of dim screens!

I am still hopeful, not deterred by the slow fading issue as the gauge does settle and I am going to set up more tests on the bench, that includes back lighting, AND if I can get some of this polarising film, replace those. Sending stuff to and from USA is now horribly expensive.

[99yam40]

When Boscoe said ground the sender wire, I was thinking that would be to the negative side of the power supply since the battery neg is normally tied to the body of the motor( ground) .
I am not sure that is what he meant or not tho

I guess I do not understand why the shipping is so expencive,
heck we could order stuff on E bay from China and get free shipping on small stuff.

find out what gaugesaver will charge for a rebuilt gauge with shipping just to get an idea

[boscoe99]

When Boscoe said ground the sender wire, I was thinking that would be to the negative side of the power supply since the battery neg is normally tied to the body of the motor( ground) .
I am not sure that is what he meant or not tho

I guess I do not understand why the shipping is so expencive,
heck we could order stuff on E bay from China and get free shipping on small stuff.

find out what gaugesaver will charge for a rebuilt gauge with shipping just to get an idea

The sender lead into the gauge is usually pink. Grounding that wire to a common ground to the gauge (the black wire for instance connected to the battery) should cause the trim bars to move from the position they are in to the opposite position. Full swing of the bar scale with the pink wire grounded to the full swing of the bar scale in the opposite direction with the pink wire not grounded.

[zenoahphobic]

The sender lead into the gauge is usually pink. Grounding that wire to a common ground to the gauge (the black wire for instance connected to the battery) should cause the trim bars to move from the position they are in to the opposite position. Full swing of the bar scale with the pink wire grounded to the full swing of the bar scale in the opposite direction with the pink wire not grounded.

That was done, no immediate change.
Gaugesaver have said it probably can’t be repaired, I have sent him a couple of photos, awaiting his reply but I believe LCD, although shows stuff is cactus as far as trim indication is concerned.

If it still serves as a tacho, I will reinstall it. I don’t need temp and oil as both of those are covered by the buzzer. I can add a separate trim gauge if I want to. I could also NM2000 something to the depth sounder multi display. All the options involve cost but still far cheaper than buying a Yamaha replacement gauge.

[99yam40]

Well if he thinks it is beyond repair, it is what it is.

I really do not understand the need for a trim gauge, you need bump it to where it runs best with the load and distribution of load you have at the moment.
and hope people will stop moving around in the boat so you do not have to keep playing with it

[zenoahphobic]

Well if he thinks it is beyond repair, it is what it is.

I really do not understand the need for a trim gauge, you need bump it to where it runs best with the load and distribution of load you have at the moment.
and hope people will stop moving around in the boat so you do not have to keep playing with it

A bit my sentiment as well, I can feel where it should be after all this time. And when I trim out for full throttle speed I can hear when it has reached maximum speed and the prop starts to ventilate.
The only time is when you lower the engine from full tilt no speed, but I usually look back to see, particularly when progressing through shallow water, just to have the prop just under the surface. But these instances the gauge tells you nothing as it would be out of range, in the tilt mode anyway.

[99yam40]

did you ask what a reconditioned gauge would cost from him and what shipping would be?

Yea, many of the boats I see try to take off with their motor too high

and the boat points its bow into the air

and the prop sucks air when the RPM and speed starts to gets up .

I usually trim all the way in before I take off , unless I am in too shallow of water.
then I trim up to get prop out of the mud, turn hard to the right to run in a circle and get the boat to lean hard onto its side, hit it, and adjust down as needed as speed is gathered so I can get up on plane.
But it is much better on the lower unit to just idle out to deep enough water to jump up.
I do get impatient at times when a storm is heading my way when up on the flats and I want to not get wet