On Mar 22, 11:13*am, wrote:
On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:39:07 -0700 (PDT), Tim
wrote:

Yes, on the few times I've run at night on the Lake, I've killed my
gauge lights so they weren't glaring back at me. even on dim, they
were a bother.

It helps to replace the bulbs with red ones. They do sell those peanut
bulbs in red. I put a resistor in the line to my gauge bulbs. The good
news is if you dim them they will probably last forever.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Mine are set up naturally 'orange' and are easy on the eyes at night,
but they do distract. I can dim them but it seems not enough to keep
from being annoying. I have them as low as they can go and will turn
them on briefly and occasionally just to make sure things are in
order, then off they go.

Sounds like you would like my gauge monitor idea
I have a comparator looking at the gauge inputs and reporting anything
out of range, before the engine squawks. There are green leds under
each gauge when things are OK and switches to red when it goes out of
range, along with a beeper
It has saved me several times when I had some obstruction to the water
flow and got me stopped before the engine got to it's overheated
stage. I have it set for about 150-160 degrees, the engine goes at
190-200.
It is really pretty simple. Just a 324 quad op amp (for 4 gauges) 4
pots and a bunch of resistors. I have a zener to establish acceptable
the volts level (triggers at anything under 12.5 or so).
It is basically just 4 voltage dividers.

Cool! I never thought of something liek that. I've used Murphy
switches before for shut down, though like loss of oil pressure or
excessive engine heat and I ahve one on my small boat. But I do like
your idea.

Do you have some sort of a schematic you could send to me, vial e-mail?