Trailerable expedition boat

[whatcharterboat]

I like jets too and I reckon one of our hulls would be good for one as they have the flat delta pad which would be perfect for mounting the jet.

I thought the same thing too.

The 6m centre console that I posted the pic of earlier in the thread came back to the workshop today. The fuel gauge sender unit isn't working so we are going to rip the floor up and replace the sender for them. We have changed to VDO since we built that boat as we have found them to be a heaps better unit. We will change the sender and the gauge to VDO so they don't have any more problem

I know for sure they are compatible with the VDO. Anyway

 

[Mickldo]

Mick Dont know if you have seen the new sender BLA are pushing. It is a fully programmable ultrasonic unit. SO the profile of the tank is taken into consideration. They programm it for you or you can buy the hardware and software and do it yourself with a laptop. Can suit any resistance range you tell it to. Is the standard 5 hole stud pattern. Very high tech super accurate sender. Only about $110.

I have seen them but I am not sure about them yet. Dunno :shrug:

 

[Mickldo]

I thought the same thing too.



I know for sure they are compatible with the VDO. Anyway

They were saying that they would program the senders to suit the tank but because every tank of ours is custom made it would make it hard. It would be good to chat to somebody that uses them and get a real world unbiased opinion.

 

[whatcharterboat]

I have seen them but I am not sure about them yet. Dunno :shrug:

Like I said the best feature is they can suit a special profile or tank shape. A normal sender can only tell you a fluid level but this one can tell you a percantage of full. So if your tank has a reserve sump or even if it tapers at the bottom or is round, it can tell you exactly how much fuel (or water or whatever) you have left.

 

[whatcharterboat]

They were saying that they would program the senders to suit the tank but because every tank of ours is custom made it would make it hard. It would be good to chat to somebody that uses them and get a real world unbiased opinion.

In that case you should program your own.

 

[whatcharterboat]

We are looking at getting some of these trailers for our boats at work.

With your workshop why aren't you making your own. I'm sure your boss has looked at it, heh?

 

[whatcharterboat]

Sometimes we do a 300 litre tank for the motorhomes that is about 2400 long and only about 150mmm high for most of it and fits between and above the chassis rails and then drops down behind the last crossmember to a depth of about 6 or 700mm. So the the normal sender reads above 3/4 for the first 200 litres and then starts to drop quickly when the long section of the tank has drained.

This new sender will be perfect for that application.

 

[Mickldo]

With your workshop why aren't you making your own. I'm sure your boss has looked at it, heh?

We were researching components to start building our own aluminium boat trailers when we looked at one of these trailers and saw that they used aluminium roller brackets so we contacted them to see if we could get the bracketry off them. We then noticed that they did aluminium trailers with torsion bar suspension and the rollers we wanted. They work out to be a pretty good price too but they need to be shipped over from WA so we need to work out cheap freight otherwise we will go back to building our own.

 

[whatcharterboat]

Mick Have you actually seen an Arneson surface drive in a boat before? Other than a high speed race/pleasure boat, anyway?. Look like they could be trimmed up to get in shallow but all the ones I've seen have had high speed "cleaver" style props so I wonder why they aren't used more on offshore fishing platforms.

 

[Mickldo]

Sometimes we do a 300 litre tank for the motorhomes that is about 2400 long and only about 150mmm high for most of it and fits between and above the chassis rails and then drops down behind the last crossmember to a depth of about 6 or 700mm. So the the normal sender reads above 3/4 for the first 200 litres and then starts to drop quickly when the long section of the tank has drained.

This new sender will be perfect for that application.

They'd probably be good for that.

These BEP senders cost a bit more than the senders we use now plus we would need to get the software too. I dunno if it would be worth it. The senders we use are top quality units that don't give us any trouble.

 

[whatcharterboat]

We've been using OEM Mitsubishi or Isuzu senders in the fuel tanks ( so the clients can get easy plug in replacements) but they cost certainly cost more than the BEP unit. If your tanks have a constant shape (ie paralell side) then it wouldn't be a concern anway.

Being ultrasonic would be another plus because they don't have any moving parts, I suppose.

 

[Mickldo]

Mick Have you actually seen an Arneson surface drive in a boat before? Other than a high speed race/pleasure boat, anyway?. Look like they could be trimmed up to get in shallow but all the ones I've seen have had high speed "cleaver" style props so I wonder why they aren't used more on offshore fishing platforms.

It probably wasn't an Arneson surface drive but I did see a large (15m-ish) Catamaran with twin surface drives down at the boat harbour the other day. It didn't look like it was a real "high speed" vessel. I was chatting to another guy on another forum and he put me onto these. He used to have one on one of his fishing boats.

 

[whatcharterboat]

Mick Going over to the thread about refrigeration on your camper.

 

[Mickldo]

We've been using OEM Mitsubishi or Isuzu senders in the fuel tanks ( so the clients can get easy plug in replacements) but they cost certainly cost more than the BEP unit. If your tanks have a constant shape (ie paralell side) then it wouldn't be a concern anway.

Being ultrasonic would be another plus because they don't have any moving parts, I suppose.

We get the VDO units for a good price. All of our tanks are a different size but they are all pretty much the same shape. Rectangular tank with the bottom shaped to match the delta pad.

The no moving parts is a good point of them, as is their plastic construction (for the electrolysis factor on the alloy boats).

 

[Mickldo]

Mick Going over to the thread about refrigeration on your camper.

John, I am going to bed.

I will catch up with that thread and you tomorrow. Later.