Thread: 1999 Malibu Wakesetter VLX (boat)

to simplify my life and assure getting my boat on the water by the end of may, i've decided to use the elite skin and modify it for my needs. here is a simple skin that i'll modify:




the boat has a gps guided cruise control called 'perfect pass' the interface for this is a multi-line display with 4 membrane buttons to control it. Luckily for me the buttons are attached to the board using a common 5 pin header... soo usb-io-i will control this and that will allow me to flush mount the display screen from the gauge into my dash:


That perfect pass system has a numeric tach and speedometer, this will allow me to delete the corresponding factory gauges, leaving me with 5 smaller gauges to graft into the cluster. fuel, engine temp, oil pressure, depth, and voltage.
here is a mock up of how it'll all look when it's done.



that's it so far. i have most everything i need now so i can start hacking away

started with the gauge cluster mod last night. first thing i had to do is make the gauge 'pods'
first thing was to separate the abs trim from the gauge:


I got four 3" abs couplers from the hardware store and cut them at a a 15 degree angle


im not sure if i want to have them recessed at an angle or extruded like my mock up. here is what it looks like extruded:


here is another mock up (you can see the new abs panel 'blank' at the top of the pic.. that is what i'll graft the lcd screen and gauge pods into)

a little more progress last night. The joycon exr arrived last night.


after a very simple hook up I started to map the buttons of my transom remote.


some cool features. besides being able to control the media/music. a long press of the 'source' button will turn on/off the perfect pass. a long press of the 'volume up' and 'volume down' buttons will fill and empty all ballast tanks respectively. a long press of the 'off' button will turn off all ballast pumps

oh... and all of the commands have an audible confirmation. ("perfect pass enabled", "fill all ballast tanks", "empty all ballast tanks" etc..) im sure it'll get old but it puts a smile on my face whenever i hear it.

so my time has been split among a bunch of projects so this one is going a bit slower right now. The vride dash wouldn't fit so i had to scrap that idea and go back to my original dash piece

the boat is ready for a complete rewire of the ballast pumps and future led wiring:




here is the recessed monitor facade:

The monitor will now sit about 1" back from the gauge panel

here is the really rough mock up (not filled/sanded) of how it'll look in the dash


i hit a wall with gauge placement though. im not sure if recessing the gauges will make it harder to read, yet i'm not really feeling having them surface mounted like they were originally on the boat.

im also not sure if i want to have 3 small gauges on the left and then the perfect pass 3" gauge on the right or two small gauges on each side of the monitor and seeing if i can sneak the perfect pass multi line display below one of them.

im leaning toward something like this (but not having the gauges pop out as much)


if anyone has any design ideas (no matter how off the wall) please chime in. im at a stand still on this

---------- Post added at 07:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:27 PM ----------

got some more geek time in today.

here is the usb-io-1's hooked up to some heavy duty relays.

well mostly wired up at least. still need to run power and ground and need a distro block. the yellow and blue wires that are just hanging there are for a future pump if i ever decide to add a bow bag. I will be making a plastic cover for it to protect and hide all the wiring as well

the big white wire looms on the left go to the ballast pumps. each set has four wires. the blue wires will be connected to a fused constant 12'v. the yellows are connected to the + leads that attach to the pump. the white wires go to the usb-io and will switch the relays, the black is ground

here is another gauge cluster pic. this one shows the ultimate layout and some more of the filling/sanding of the screen:


i decided to go with a recessed gauge, in the end i think it looks the cleanest

still need a few more rounds with the sanders but it's getting closer.

you're looking at the raw abs right now, the monitor's housing is made from a light gray abs and i've been sanding the crap out of the whole piece so that's why it has that dirty matte look and the different colors

here are the stock gauges just placed in there. im contemplating installing them behind the holes instead of on top, but the way they are now allows them to be easily replaced:


i still need to add the perfect pass multi line display and a depth finder display

it's hard to photograph it and make it look good in this state, but up im pretty happy with the progress so far

---------- Post added at 07:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:28 PM ----------

haven't updated this in a little while but have made a lot of ground on the project.


ok, so onto the good stuff

Here is more work on the gauge cluster; im still not happy with it, the recessed screen is a !@#$! to sand in the corners.


i also received this today:



short youtube video of what it does

and now the homebrew mtc will get a Power Wedge controller

This was actually a the hardest part of the build so far. i dont want to, nor have the time to make my own ic board; yet, i need to flip the polarity in order to move the wedge up and down. Ii figured out how to do it with the usb-io and 4 additional 40amp fuses. the nice part about this; i can run low voltage wire (cat 6 or even telephone cord) from the usb-io under the dash, and have it control the relays placed close to the wedge and batteries.

not sure if anyone will be able to make sense of my chicken scratch but here is the "schematic":




i also have gotten into seriously modding the "elite lite" skin for our purposes:
I'm trying to create the skin so that it'll be as painless as possible for you guys to quickly incorporate it into your own system too. should be only a few files and one folder to place in the correct spots.

(ignore the stretching, the screen is an old 4:3 monitor, the touchscreen that will be installed in the boat is a 16:9 aspect ration and everything will resolve itself



Main menu-
ballast button: will bring you to the main ballast screen
wedge button: will bring you to the power wedge control screen
perfect pass button: will bring you to the perfect pass control screen
lights button: will bring you to the light control screen
power button: short press will toggle the perfect pass on/off, long press will start/stop the engine
audio: brings you to the elite skin's audio screen. long press will bring you to the video screen
wake preset: brings you to the wake preset screen



Ballast-
short press will toggle pump on/off
long press on any of the 'FILL' buttons will turn off all empty pumps (if any are on) and turn on all fill pumps for 8 mins (or any predetermined amount of time)
long press on any of the 'EMPTY' buttons will turn off all fill pumps (if any are on) and turn on all empty pumps for 8 mins (or any predetermined amount of time)







Power Wedge-
retract button: will raise the power wedge to it's stowed position
up arrow: will manually raise the wedge (momentary switch, it will only move the wedge as long as you're pressing the button)
down arrow: will manually lower the wedge (momentary switch, it will only move the wedge as long as you're pressing the button)
"large" button: will reset the wedge to the lowest position, then raise it to the highest position of it's functional range (based on time)
"medium" button: will reset the wedge to the lowest position, then raise it to the middle position of it's functional range (based on time)
"small" button: will lower the wedge to it's lowest position

Another forum member and I are brainstorming ways to have a position sensor so that we can turn this into a 'smart' system instead of a blind one. more to come on that in future posts.





Perfect Pass-
up arrow/down arrow will adjust speed setting or scroll through menu options (same as stock multi line display)
stargazer logo will access the menu
power button will toggle the power on and off (also accessable from the menu screen)
gps speed will be displayed but derived from the computer's gps dongle, not the perfect pass



Wake Preset-
one touch control to set ballast, wedge and perfect pass speed automatically



Audio screen-
This is the skin's default audio browser.

I'm a boarder myself, and this is sik. I especially like the Wake Presets, awesome idea.

Is it going to be finished in time for the summer season?

I've always considered a split wedge, so the 2 sides can automatically work independently, to keep the boat level on the straights, I see you just bought a wedge, but something to consider anyway.

Originally Posted by badmonkey23

I'm a boarder myself, and this is sik. I especially like the Wake Presets, awesome idea.

Is it going to be finished in time for the summer season?

I've always considered a split wedge, so the 2 sides can automatically work independently, to keep the boat level on the straights, I see you just bought a wedge, but something to consider anyway.

thanks. didn't even think anyone was looking at this thread.

I plan on having it up and running by the end of the month. at least v1.0. im sure i'll have to make some changes after real world interaction with it. the biggest hold up is the upholstery shop. they f-d up big time on my cushions and im having them redo everything. :\ they had to call in a specialist so im crossing my fingers that it'll get done sooner then later

I decided to go with the power wedge because the foil was designed and tested by engineers; clearly, that isnt me.

does your boat not stay level on the straights? the wedge is made to shape the wake and give it a little more size. i dont think it has any thing to do with aiding plaining of the boat. i believe what you're thinking of are trim tabs

i have been watching as well-- my families got a 1980-something ski boat(i think it's 16ft), and while we really only ski or tube behind it, i'm always interested in different applications for pc's..

It would mainly be for when people move around in the boat. Trim tabs are similar, but I'm guessing they'd disturb the wake, and lift the boat slightly out of the water, a submerged split wedge would do the trick.

I'm in Oz, so we're about to go into our winter season, with all the floods we had we only got about 3 weeks on the water all summer.

Originally Posted by badmonkey23

It would mainly be for when people move around in the boat. Trim tabs are similar, but I'm guessing they'd disturb the wake, and lift the boat slightly out of the water, a submerged split wedge would do the trick.

I'm in Oz, so we're about to go into our winter season, with all the floods we had we only got about 3 weeks on the water all summer.

interesting idea




here are some videos of it in action:

interface:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74w99EZpVxA

power wedge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4avDfYhNS18

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iBffNrzTnM