Tank Monitoring System

by Media Services on 8 Jun 2007 Oceantalk is now selling a Tank management system that helps monitor your boats fuel, and water storage systems, including a spill free deck filler that displays the percentage full on each fuel tank. With a brightly lit LED display right there at the filler on the deck.

Oceantalk’s Robin Kydd saw a prototype of the deck gauge at a recent marine equipment trade show and was so impressed he imported them from UK based company Offshore Systems.

‘The deck filler (with display) is a really nice idea.…It’s not often that there’s something completely new in this industry.

The NMEA2000 Deck Filler Gauge allows tanks to be filled to the top without the risk of spills. It enables the boat’s range to be maximised, while minimising the risk of wastage. Wasting diesel is not only expensive; it will damage the local environment.

The tank level is displayed on a blue LED display set into the deck filler surround. The display provides a clear indication of the level of the liquid in the tank at all times. The LED varies in brightness to compensate for ambient light levels, brighter in sunlight and dimmer at night.

Along with the Deck Filler Gauge, Oceantalk is selling a NMEA 2000 Fuel Tank Level Sender. The sender provides a ±2% accurate fuel level to the NMEA2000 marine network and reports its level in 1% increments.

‘It’s a stainless steel rod that goes into your fuel tank’ explained Robin.

‘They come in different depths according to how big the fuel tank is. And because fuel tanks in boats are not square, you can tailor the calibration to a specific tank shape.

Another excellent feature of the fuel sender is that it constantly monitors the fuel for any water contamination and warns if any is found. This helps protect your engines from expensive damage. As an added bonus it draws less than 50mA from your boat’s network.

The unit is robustly constructed in stainless steel with no moving parts to stick or fail. It is easily cut to length to suit tank depths from 250mm to 2 metres and is self calibrating when switched on.

The range also includes the NMEA2000 MultiTank Display. This is a display unit which can show the tank levels of all fuel, fresh water, grey water, black water, oil and live well tanks on a single graphic display. There can be multiple displays hooked into a single network so the same information can be displayed in a multi station environment.

‘As part of the complete system we can interface with any NMEA 2000 network, this will allow display on a variety of NMEA2000 compliant instrument units. We can integrate that with water tanks, sewerage tanks and so on. You can look and see how full they are.’

The display unit can show 1, 2 or 4 tanks at a time.
A tank name can be entered by the owner so that the tank display is more meaningful. This can say for example 'Port Forward Fuel Tank'. The name given to the tank will then show the same on any MultiTank Display thus making the displays consistent and very user friendly.

Each tank can be set an alarm warning level so that Fuel or Fresh Water tanks getting low or Grey or Black Water tanks getting high will alert the owner.

With accurate displays, deck level fuel tank gauges and alarms, there’s no longer any excuse to run out of fuel.

* Displays Tank Level at the Deck Filler and at the existing instruments

* Prevents fuel spills during refuelling

* Maximises range from full tanks

* Identifies correct tank to fill

* Blue LED Display

* Robust Stainless Steel Construction

* Easy to Install

* Single Plug to NMEA2000® Bus

Oceantalk Australia Pty Ltd

Email: sales@oceantalk.com.au

36/176 South Creek Road, Dee Why
Sydney NSW 2099 Australia

PO BOX 5001, Wheeler Heights
Sydney NSW 2097 Australia

Telephone: (02) 9981 9500
Facsimile: (02) 9981 9555