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Merc or After Market 'Safe/Child/Wife Mode'

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DuaneB

New member
Hi,

Is anyone aware of a feature of aftermarket product to implement a user selectable restricted power mode on Mercury outboards ?

I have seen this feature in a youtube review of a boat some time ago, cant remember any of the other details but would like to have the option of putting my boat into safe/child/wife mode on occasion.

Thanks

Duane
 
Hmmm... interesting thought. I know Ford cars have that option. They can be speed limited and radio volume limited......seems like boats are usually ten years behind on the technology.
 
DuaneB said:
It would be easily overridden, but for wife proofing the boat while skiing and boarding this looks perfect -

https://embed.widencdn.net/pdf/plus...nu/8M0083031_02-0115_SmartTow_LR.pdf?u=orhjei

very little information available though

Duane.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking of getting one of those but they're pretty expensive. The level 2 gauge kit is $1,150 Canadian and the level 3 gauge kit is a little over $1,500 Canadian (including taxes). If I understand it correctly, the difference between the two is in how they maintain the boat's speed. The level 2 gauge does it by keeping the engine running a constant RPM setting while the level 3 gauge does it by keeping a steady speed as measured by the built-in GPS speedometer.
 
The magnum tuning module looks to be targetted at overriding the rev limiter rather than restricting within its factory range.

The Mercury modules look like a great fit for what I want -

1) limit the top speed for family boating
2) Set safe cruising to let the family have a turn driving

and as an added bonus

3) Repeatable launch profiles for tow sports
4) Steady tow speeds without driver (wife) input

There is very little information available about them though, in some of the documents it looks as if only the RPM Gauge supports the tow sports functionality, other newer or older documents suggest its available across a wider range.

Its definitely something I want in the new boat, but would like to see more information or reviews. As its a niche product I am not expecting much information from the local Merc Dealer.

Anyone have upto date information on which modules support RPM based control or the product range in general ?

Note - GPS is patchy where I boat so will have to go for the RPM based modules.

Duane.
 
DuaneB said:
The magnum tuning module looks to be targetted at overriding the rev limiter rather than restricting within its factory range.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Magnum web site indicates that it can override the RPM as much as 20% above or 20% below factory limit. So if it's set to 20% below then the motor would be limited to about 4800 RPM.

That having been said, you might want to wait until you have the boat before worrying too much about this particular detail. My wife never grew up with boats, so she had no experience driving them and was nervous about learning. Then when I brought home the BRX with the the 250 ProXS hanging 16" off the back, she was even more intimidated. However, once she tried driving it (which was about 8 months ago), she had absolutely no problem controlling where it was going, its speed, or its acceleration. A few weeks after that she was pulling our kid on the tube behind it.

I have noticed the acceleration and speed only comes with very deliberate movements of the throttle, and the BRX is small enough that you still feel the speed. When I watch my wife drive it, I can see her having to deliberately move the throttle to bringing it on plane and get into her comfort zone for speed, which is in the 30-40 MPH range. It's not like a 1" movement of the shifter handle is the difference between 5 MPH and 70 MPH. The relationship between throttle movement and acceleration almost seems like Merc programmed the ECU with a non-linear mapping. In other words, it feels like the first 75% of throttle movement corresponds to only 50% of the motor's power, and the last 25% of throttle movement gets you the remaining 50% of the motor's power. I'm not a Merc technician so I don't know if that's exactly the case, but I can say the driveability of the Optimax is quite different than a carb motor with rigid linkages, which can only provide a linear relationship between throttle movement and motor HP.

The thing my wife worries about far more than acceleration and speed is the trim and transom jack positions. She knows how to control acceleration and speed just fine, but she doesn't want to risk having handling issues or damaging the motor by driving with the trim and jack in the wrong positions. So for your rigging I would suggest you think about getting trim and jack plate gauges if you think your wife will worry about the same thing. I don't have gauges for those and have been positioning the jack and trim based on the water conditions and the "feel" of the boat, but my wife doesn't have enough experience to do that. She needs gauges so I can show here where to set them for "safe" driving.

For my trim and jack gauges, I'm going to get a digital trim sender and connect it to the MercMonitor Level 1 gauge that I already have. For the jack plate, I'm thinking of getting a second MercMonitor Level 2 gauge with SmartTow and then see if I can somehow attach another Merc trim position sender to the jack plate so it can be read by the Level 2 gauge. I realize the trim sender works on rotational movement and the jack plate is vertical movement, so I'll need to fabricate a linkage of some sort.
 
keith4216 said:
So in a nut shell. Teach her how to drive.:thumb:
Click to expand...

Haha, yes I suppose there's that. My point was more that the BRX even maxed out on HP is not this crazy uncontrollable beast that can only be driven by experienced boaters. It's an easy boat to drive under 60 MPH and it's very easy to keep it there.
 
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