Get rid of DECC?

[Capt Rick]

I'm impressed! create a price

[Epic Dave]

I designed the panel and sent a PDF to New Wire Marine who cut it and etched the text and logo. That cost about $230 + $10 for custom cut LED strip to backlight it. I bought the switches, bus bars, terminal strip, wires, and connectors from Amazon (except the horn button, which I bought on eBay).

For everything, it cost me about $300. Not cheap but it's a very visible part of the boat and I wanted it to look as good or better than factory new. Wiring it all up was tedious and took some time. If anyone wants help making one, I will provide the design and provide info on the suppliers.

[cyclone]

Very nice execution!  looks as good or better than the factory.

You could save a lot on the front panel by using this company www.frontpanelexpress.com. I use them for anodized aluminum front panels for guitar amplifiers. The dimensions of the panels I have had made are 3" x 20" with about the same hole count and engraving, cost is around 80$ and that is 2mm thick aluminum with engraved and backfilled numbers and lettering. They do plastic as well and that is less costly than the aluminum. You can download their little cad program and design them very easily. That price I gave is for one-off's. They are out of Seattle IIRC

My price for epic buyers for a bolt-in touchpanel system will be not too far north of what you have in that, esp when you consider the hours it must have taken to hard wire all of those switches. Details to follow in separate post.

 Again, very nice job!

[FreeLance]

@Epic Dave, that is awesome!  I went down the same path, creating the CAD view dimensionally correct was a PIA.  At some point I want to do the Professional aluminum panel like yours, but for now the boat must go in the water.  I also did full brain surgery and pulled the DECC and the Fuse box. Replaced the whole thing with an EATON VEC.

Bought if from these guys, great to work with.
http://www.connectorconcepts.com/16fu16reduse.html

 Large learning curve crimping all the connectors and figuring out triggers and power.

I took bunches of pictures along the way, will post when I get around to it.

It amazing me how many wires the DECC eliminates compared to a mechanical switch relay system!

[FreeLance]

Pictures of the parts used.  I think I captured all of them, but I will need to double check.

Some show the entire QTY, others show 1 of many, like the buttons.

[FreeLance]

Cad print out glued to fiber board for a template.  Made a jig on a 2 way vice and used the drill press to human CnC the panel.  5 tries later I got it correct, it was a trial in patience.

Button panel bench testing.

[FreeLance]

There were two very nerve wracking parts of the project.

I have the old DECC with the wires integrated right into the molded body of the device.  I had to cut the plug off.

The second part was dissection the old fuse panel and reconnecting everything to the new VEC.  Picture attached of the brain surgery in process.  Once complete I bench tested the new switch panel through the relays, all tested good... Whew!

[cyclone]

Sorry for dragging my feet, but I have my system ready to sell. I have tested it for almost a year and it works very well. I have another week off next week and will post some info I've been working on such as an installation and users manual.

It's a plug and play setup, remove button panels and replace Decc, attach orange connector to term strip on top of new (supplied) relay box. Box connects to panel with ethernet cable.

It has Bluetooth, wireless connectivity to phone hotspot or options for LTE modem or hifi soundcard.

THe only thing I am still developing is a panel for the display. I put it in CAD but I'm trying to learn some solidworks. If you can handle making your own panel, I can sell you a system today. In the vid, I simply replaced the fake carbon fiber panel with a piece of .25" plexi with a 4x6" rectangular hole cut in it plus one for the keyswitch. if anyone with cad skills wants to help out and cad it up, I will give you a discount.

Intro price for system is 475$, LTE card is extra $150, audiophile sound card is extra $50, can't do both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYnMz2kmEzA

Here's a brief demo vid, I will post more info and pics in a bit.

[cyclone]

Oh, and Lance, that is badass! I would like to have used something that heavy duty for the relay switching but I needed the remote control instead of the spaghetti. That will work forever!

[cyclone]

THis is my ethernet relay box (white box) and an added accessory fuse block to take all the non-switched power connections off the DECC. Relays are 10 amp which is better than orig equpt 7 amp relays in the DECC. Everything is fused for way less than that in the breaker box on the top. THe relay panel to the right is for the ballast, theres a DECC relay box (removed) that switches those four large relays. I didn't take it out because it also does the level display and I want to keep that. It connects to relays 12-16 on the relay box. I like independent control of the ballasts, so that's the way it's set up, rather than the factory idiocracy.

Soft buttons on the touch screen are programmable, so if you want something custom it's no big deal. If you are so inclined, and you buy one, I will give you the source code, go nuts.

There's an industrial 64GB SD card in the panel, plenty of room for music or vids. I just youtube off a phone hotspot. the 4G LTE option works great but gets costly, its only 10$ a month for my phone hotspot so I opted for that instead. The soundcard is an audiophile high res brown burris DAC, I'd rather have that. I run it out to the aux on my head unit, to a six channel preamp and then to a custom audio volume control I made to three amps, blahblahblah. Can't really wakeboard anymore so I just dink with my stereo.

You can run straight out of the panel using the stock audio output but it is not great sounding. I highly recommend the sound card and using the panel for your head unit. There are USB ports and about 40GB of space on the SD card for media. You can also connect to the panel via Bluetooth and allow any wanker with a cellphone to play whatever they want. Not my idea of a party. I didn't spend that much time on this crap to have to listen to Drake.

[cyclone]

Button control on your phone. While this is possible, it is not really practical. you can do it via VNC for the price of 0.0$ Just another thing that you can do.

I am working with an OBD2 interface and TORQ to do an "analogue" dash display and other engine signals such as gauges.

In the pic you can see the relay box and the ethernet connection between the panel and the box. I put an internal voltage reg in the relay box. The system works fine even when the house battery is less than 9vdc.

[cyclone]

heres the panel just double sticky taped to the original panel which I cut out. You have to trim some of the plastic dash behind, and the fake ass carbon fiber panel cuts like buttah.

there is a gap top and bottom of the display that is not glaring or drastic, but it bothers me a bit. So, I am working to have a plastic panel made which will be a better fit. Cost will be about 30$ but if you want to maintain a factory look this works.

[cyclone]

the button panel maintains the state of the buttons when you stop and start the engine, and is very stable. I doubled up on the power supplies to the panel to make sure it maintains power. You can jump in and out of the panel program to change music, check the weather radar, catch up on email, use map applications, edit your blog, post to facebook, etc and the button app is in the background. You can't close it, only minimize it. It's a mini touchpad PC in your dash. You can open and edit spreadsheets and word docs if you are so inclined. if you start and stop a lot, no worries, it keeps working and does not reboot. The audio and internet connection to your phone comes back after 5 or 10 sec. with no intervention.

It comes with a mini wireless keyboard with touchpad, backlit for nighttime excursions. that way someone can select music while you are driving. When you open the web browser, the home page is epicmarine.com, so you can get reference and troubleshooting information. Who DOES that!! Amazing, almost as cool as Mypillow.

Please send me a PM if you are interested, I will give you my phone number. I will provide tech support for each system sale.

I will also provide a detailed installation and operations manual and stock spare parts and offer software updates. I am going to add an OBD2 display, tower cameras and other features as development time permits.

[cyclone]

I will say that in a year of testing on the water, with all the stuff that happens out there including dead batteries and jump starting, waves over the bow, boat being outside with no cover (under a roof) and stopping and starting the engine constantly, direct sun heating up the panel, dacquiri machine leaks, etc.the only failure I've had was a corrupt SD card. It was a cheapo 5$ card. I reimaged it and it was fine, it's running now. So, I will provide the highest quality waterproof industrial SD card available and a loaded spare with each system. You can swap it in a couple of sec if you have issues, and send it back for a free reimage. You can also manually activate  any circuit with a jumper wire in an emergency. It's a vast improvement over the factory panels just in terms of reliability, and I have had two Epics, one I bought new and the buttons were flakey from day one. The other parts are readily available, nothing is proprietary but the software written by my son and the construction of the relay box, and I got the parts on Amazon.

[FreeLance]

I love all these solutions everyone is coming up with for our boats.  Starting with Capt. Rick and the first plug and play system to Epic Dave and finally full digital with Cyclone.  Great work on all of them.

This year I am truly excited to have a full set of working buttons and accessories.   First time ever for my boat!