Trouble shooting Ensign 735 digital tach

stevenp

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Apr 28, 2010
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Last weekend we were anchored overnight during a thunderstorm and in the morning I fired up the engines to find that the digital tach would only display all 8's from both helms. The analog tachs still work fine on both helms.

The wiring circuit on the Ensign 735 looks pretty simple; I checked all connections and they appear to be good. I can get readings of >3vdc and >12vdc from the five pin connector. Quick research suggests that this is good - 12v for power and >1.5v for an RPM reading.

I'm not sure what else I can do to trouble shoot this thing short of plugging it in on someone else's boat to see if it gets a reading. I'm in MA; if there's someone within a couple hours I would make the drive to give it a try.

Any other suggestions? I have a hard time believing that the lightening would harm nothing on the boat except the tach but it is a strange coincidence. Is it even possible? The closest strike was about 1/10th of a mile away, on shore.
 
This probably won't help, but the top link in this search has pfd of the Ensign's trouble-shooting section of the manual.
https://www.google.com/search?sourc...ss&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7LENP_enUS479US479

If you don't have any luck , you might check with Lauderdale Speedometer and Compass < lspeedo dot com> to see if they work on those Ensigns. They claim they fix most any car, plane or boat gauge and several years ago they did repair one of my Aetna digital tachs ( overnight turnaround and inexpensively.)
 
Thanks Sandy. I had seen that page already which led me to checking for >1.5v DC.

I might contact Lauderdale and have them test it.
 
Let us know if Lauderdale will work on them, mine is acting up too.
 
L Speedo says they can't fix it so it appears I'm SOL.
 
Thanks for the follow up. My LED readout on the stbd side is missing a line or two.
 
Just don't replace with Faria unless your knuckles are up to smacking it several times/day!
 
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