Anybody Use a Lowrance EP-60 Fuel Flow Sensor?

[t_dub]

seeing as how the digital Honda fuel flow/speedo gauge costs about $700, thought i'd look into the alternative of using the fuel management features built into my HDS. Just curious if anyone has used it and what they thought???

[Nelly]

Hey 'Dub,
I use an EP-60 fuel flow sensor and I would burn more fuel if I didn't have it... Why?

Because your boat has a "sweet spot" or RPM zone that delivers the maximum mileage per gallon. The problem is that while you think you can hear and feel your rig's sweet spot, nothing can dial it in like a flow meter and over the course of a season, the fuel savings are significant!

If you don't have a fuel flow meter on your 18 foot or more boat, my recommendation is to get one.

If you do, drive that gauge. In other words, most boaters only look at the tach and speedometer.

When you start paying attention instead to the fuel flow and speedometer you'll find and be better equipped to keep your boat running at it's economical best!

[t_dub]

picked one up yesterday as well as a NMEA 200 starter kit. got it installed this afternoon. now i just have to figure out how to use it the directions that come with the ep-60 look to be pre-HDS, but i'm guessing once it's attached to your network and you've got your NMEA powered, it should automatically recognize the sensor and start feeding data?????

[Nelly]

Hey Dub,

Make sure you follow the exact structure of the network.

Here's a link to Lowrance Basic NEMA 2000 Networks

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

[t_dub]

finally got the network up and recognizing the ep-60. spent about an hour banging my head under the dash trying to figure out why the unit wouldn't recognize the bus? finally decided to check the thing i should have checked first, the fuse, which of course was bad. switch that out and presto, there's my sensor. already got my burn rate added to the data overlay on my chart and my dashboard set. pretty geeky that i'm just as excited to to see how this works as i am to go fishing on thursday. thanks for the help.

[Nelly]

Very cool!
I'm glad you got it up and running!
It would be nice to know the reason why that fuse popped but that stuff aften happens during installations.

Good luck with that fuel flow meter! It will pay for itself many times over!

[t_dub]

little frustrated right now. think i got a bad sensor. the thing doesn't read fuel rate at all; well actually it will read 600 gpm, then 500 gpm, then 300 gpm, then goes to 0.0 gpm, all in about 5 seconds when I first hit the throttle. then it just stays at 0.0 for the rest of the trip. day one, it was reading total fuel used, but that went from 1.5 to 5.1in the blink of an eye. wasn't reading any fuel used the second day. Navico seems to think an upgrade to software version 4.0 will fix it (never mind that i told him i already did the upgrade). talked to Troy at West Marine where I bought it, he's got a couple more coming on Tuesday, so i'll probably trade it out then. in the mean time, i'm going to pull the sensor from the fuel line and see if the little wheel in there is even spinning. troy suggested blowing through it, once the gas is cleared, so see if i can even getting a fuel rate reading on the HDS. configuration doesn't seem to be a problem, one motor, one tank, so who knows, we'll see if a new sensor fixes things.

[Nelly]

Electronics bugs can be a major pain but at least you aren't burning 300 gallons an hour!!!

I've met Troy, he has done work on Tobeck's boat and he is a sharp operatior on NEMA 2000 network issues.

One thing you might just try is checking your "device list" in the Lowrance setup menu.
With your key switch on, see if you can find the fuel flow sensor by its correct name.
Try to select it in the menu and check its configuration.

If your Lowrance is not correctly reading the sensor by name, or if the sensor is mounted backwards (fuel flow arrow points toward engine) it could lead to the false readings you're experiencing.

Good luck and let us know what you find out!

[t_dub]

yeah, it was there on the list, was properly configured and even pointing the right direction. pulled the sensor from the fuel line, left it plugged into the network, fired everything thing up and gave it a handfuls of test blows. didn't even register a peep on the HDS. could feel air coming out the other side, but it didn't seem like an little wheel inside was turning either. although, not sure if that's something i'd be able to sense anyway. even tried blowing through it backwards on the off chance the arrow was stamped on there wrong. nada! guess i'll get a new sensor on tuesday.

[t_dub]

think Lowrance got a bad batch of probes. West Marine finally got a new shipment in so went down there to exchange it. Troy already had one out of the package and was testing it out on a backbone he put together in the store. good thing he did, cause you could hear the little wheel spinning in the probe when you blew through it, but didn't register a thing on the screen. tried a third one and that finally worked. swapped my bad one for it. came home, installed it on the boat, went out today and it worked great. wheew! finally! if we'd only caught some silvers today, all would have been right in the world.