posted 05-23-2015 06:51 PM ET (US)        

System configuration menus provide for setting the number of outboard engines (up to four), the transom position of each outboard, and for selection of the throttle control (hand or foot).

ICON Touch Display, HOME screen, four-engine configuration.

SCREENS

The ICON Touch display is organized in several screens or pages of data. The available screens are:

--Home

--Outboard

--Fluid Tanks

--Modes

--ECO or Fuel Economy

--Trip

--Vessel

--Diagnostics

--Menu

In addition to the screen or page selected, the lower portion of the display always shows a Status Bar.

ICON Touch Status Bar appears on most operational screens.

The Status Bar always presents the following data:

--gear position (F,N,R for each outboard)

--throttle input selection (hand or foot)

--time of day (hours and minutes)

--fuel economy status (alert)

--engine status alert indicators (oil, engine, temperature, battery alerts)

The upper portion of the display always shows the Touch Point Command Icons. The Touch Point Command Icons permit navigation to additional pages.

ICON Touch Point Command Bar permits quick navigation to operational screens.

The HOME screen presentation varies with the number of engines on the vessel. For multiple engines, the engine speed in RPM, the coolant temperature, and the trim position are shown for each engine. The speed over ground, total fuel consumption per hour, and instantaneous MPG are also shown. (See illustration above for the HOME screen and four-engine configuration.) For a single engine, a simplified screen shows RPM, trim position, speed over ground, and water pressure.

The OUTBOARD screen presents data about the engine in more detail, showing

--RPM

--Trim

--Engine hours

--Coolant temperature

--Water pressure

--Battery voltage

--Oil level (from the outboard's own oil tank)

--Fuel consumption

--Throttle position

The FLUID TANKS screen presents data about the tank levels. Up to four fuel tanks can be displayed. The engine oil tank level for each engine is shown. A second tab on the display leads to a calibration screen for configuring and calibrating tank level sensors.

The MODES screen permits control and configuration of several operating modes:

--Trim Assist can be set ON or OFF

--Power Steering Assist can be set to OFF, High Effort, or Low Effort

The ECO (or fuel economy) screen presents data about vessel speed and fuel usage:

--Trim position (for all engines)

--Fuel consumption (total of all engines)

--Fuel economy (MPG or other units)

--Range (Miles or other units)

--Average fuel economy (MPG or other units)

--Vessel speed (MPH or other units)

--Vessel RPM (an average of all engine speeds)

The AVG or average fuel economy is a bar graph that shows the averaged fuel economy of all engines in a range of Good/Better/Best.

The TRIP screen presents data about the vessel during a specific time or distance period, including:

--Distance

--Operating time

--Average speed

--Maximum speed

--Average fuel economy

--Fuel consumed

This data is collected and organized in two instances, called Trip A and Trip B.

The VESSEL screen presents data about environmental parameters and other vessel status data:

--Water temperature

--Live well temperature

--Outside air temperature

--Battery voltage

--Fuel consumption (GPH or other units), sum of all engines

--Vessel speed (MPH or other units)

--Fuel economy (MPG or other units)

The temperature data requires installation of external temperature sensors.

The DIAGNOSTIC screen provides access to active and historical engine faults stored in the engine management module (EMM) of the E-TEC engine or engines. Previously this information was only available with use of the EV-Diagnostics software executing on laptop and connected to the diagnostic port of the engine.

The MENU screen permits navigation to three sub-menu screens:

--Configuration

--Calibrations

--Winterization

The Configuration sub-menu provides controls for display backlight, selection of language and units, time offset from GMT and use of daylight savings, setting of depth alarms, and setting of number of engines.

The Calibration sub-menu provides for configuration and calibration of tank fluid level sensors. Three additional optons provide for selection of input sources from ICON controls wired inputs, from instrument input on the ICON Touch display, or or from analog-to-digital convertors on the NMEA-2000 network.

Inputs from the ICON remote controls can be configured as fuel or oil tanks, and the sensors can be calibrated. Inputs from the ICON Touch instrument can be configured as oil, fresh water, waste water, or black water tanks, and the sensors can be calibrated. Inputs from analog-to-digital convertors (up to five inputs) connected to the NMEA-2000 network can also be selected. (It appears that NAVICO sensors are to be used.)

The calibration sub-menu also provides for calibration of the Trim/Tilt position of the engine and for calibration of configuration of the fuel economy calculators. The period of time (in seconds) for integration of average MPG can be set. Also the instantaneous and average fuel economy can be reset.

The winterization sub-menu permits permits initiation of the E-TEC engine self-winterization mode.

The ICON Touch 7.0 CTS display carries on the tradition of the ICON Pro RPM gauge in allowing calibration of the E-TEC engine Trim setting. It also includes calibrations for fluid tank level sensors, a function in both ICON Pro and I-Command gauges.

The ICON Touch breaks new ground in being able to query the E-TEC EMM and retrieve active and stored faults. In addition, the ICON Touch display can show descriptive text explaining the fault codes.

The ICON Touch can also configure several engine settings, such as the amount of effort for the power steering, the selection of a foot throttle or a hand throttle, and engaging or disabling the Trim Assist Mode.

Although the ICON Touch was designed with the Evinrude E-TEC 74-degree V6 engines--the E-TEC G2--it will also be able to work with the E-TEC first generation engines. Some configuration functions and controls will not be operable with the older engines, but the ICON Touch display will show all the standard NMEA-2000 engine parameters being sent by the E-TEC first-generation engines.

The ability of the ICON Touch 7.0 CTS display to communicate with the engine management module (EMM) of the E-TEC engine via its NMEA-2000 network connection is reflective of a new approach to EMM communication in general in the new E-TEC 74-degree V6 (or G2) engines. The EMM in a new E-TEC engine is accessible via a network connection. Further, in multiple engine installations, the EMM of all engines can be accessed via the network using just one connection to the network. In this way the ICON Touch can adjust settings on each engine, as well as show active or stored faults from each engine, just by being connected to the network.

This approach to EMM communication via a network instead of a dedicated diagnostic connection is a significant change in the method of communication with the EMM. This will also be reflected in the EV-Diagnostic software. The laptop or computer executing the diagnostic software will not connect to an E-TEC G2 via a separate diagnostic connector, but will, instead, connect to the network using a new network-to-USB electrical interface. With one connection to the network, multiple engines on a vessel can be accessed by the diagnostic software.

ICON TOUCH 4.3 CTS and ICON 3.5C DISPLAYS

In addition to the ICON Touch 7.0 CTS touch display, there are also the ICON 4.3-inch color display and a ICON 3.5C color display. The ICON 3.5C color display can mount in the standard tachometer gauge hole, and can only be used with single engine installations. If you need more information about the new ICON TOUCH 7.0 CTS, ICON TOUCH 4.3 CTS, and ICON 3.5C displays, Here are links to those resources:

ICON 3.5C Display User Guide
http://www.operatorsguides.brp.com/OperatorsGuidesAttachments/ OwnersManuals_EJ/attach/Accessories/216762_EN.pdf

ICON Touch 4.3 CTS Display User Guide
http://www.operatorsguides.brp.com/OperatorsGuidesAttachments/ OwnersManuals_EJ/attach/Accessories/356595_EN.pdf

ICON Touch 7.0 CTS Display User Guide
http://www.operatorsguides.brp.com/OperatorsGuidesAttachments/ OwnersManuals_EJ/attach/Accessories/356596_EN.pdf

The ICON 3.5C Display is not a touch-screen device. It has five hardware buttons which can perform various functions as indicated by on-screen labels. The ICON 3.5C Display can only be used with a single engine. The other models can be used with multiple engines.

It does not appear that these touch screen displays provide the user with some sort of editor that allows the user to make changes to the layout or design of pages that present the a touch-screen interface:

A touch-screen display is quite different from a non-touch screen display. With a non-touch display, the data on the display is generally just information being displayed to the user. It seems common these days to be able to edit or customize the presentation, that is, to move or drag graphic elements around the screen area to position them where desired. When the display becomes a touch-screen, this ability to modify the presentation becomes more difficult.

A touch-screen display is also an input device. The area of the display that presents a graphic representation of a button that can be pushed, for example, must also include a mapping of the location of that button in the screen to the touch-screen part of the display so it can detect when the user touches the screen in that region. This means there are two layers of mapping on the screen:

--the position of graphics on the screen that represent an input device in some form, and

--the position of the touch-screen interface boundaries that correspond to that graphic and its position.

In consideration of the dual mapping, it seems somewhat understandable that providing an editor for the user to modify the presentation as he desires might be a bit more difficult than just moving around some graphics. A further problem in accomplishing the editing of the screen is the recognition that, if allowed, a user might re-map the location of the button that signifies the changes are to be saved. At that point, where does the user press on the touch screen to activate the interface button? On the old location? Or the new location? It seems reasonable that one might have to run the editor on another device, say a workstation, to compose the new versions of the screen. Then save the changes to a file which would then be uploaded to the touch-screen devices.

It also seems like providing an editor for a touch-screen user interface might expose the device to having to make changes to the lower-levels of its operating system while those systems were running.

I am not a designer or engineer of touch-screen interfaces, but I can see that providing users with a means to edit the presentation, move elements around, and change the location of graphics on a touch screen display may be more complicated than with screens that are just displays and not user-input devices.

WIRING DETAILS

The ICON Touch display rear panel contains several connectors. A 23-pin connector with a wiring harness is provided. The wiring harness breaks out into:

--a NMEA-2000 standard DeviceNET Micro connector

--a Deutsch connector for an aural alert or horn sounder

--a Deutsch connector for 12-Volt DC power input

--three sets of two-wire analog level inputs, used for fluid tank level sensors

--a single BLUE wire for an instrument illumination circuit voltage input

A second 23-pin connector is provided but is not used at this time. A connection for a Secure Data (SD) memory card is also provide but is not used at this time.

posted 05-26-2015 10:23 AM ET (US)         

Good to see that BRP is actively introducing new hi-tech accessories to their line.

Many of the current breed of seven-inch or larger multi-funtion displays are able to read engine NMEA 2000 data, but being able to display current and historic engine fault codes will set the BRP displays apart from the Garmin, Lowrance, Simrad, etc. MFD's.

posted 05-27-2015 08:51 AM ET (US)            

--select the amount of power steering boost that will be applied

--select the profile to be used for the iTrim automatic engine trim feature

--engage or shut off the iTrim feature

--select which throttle control device will be used, such as changing to a pedal throttle from a conventional top-mounting throttle