Tiny tach wire length question.

sutor623

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May 23, 2011
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Am getting a tinytach and Ill need 16+ feet of wire to run it to my console. Do I need to worry about interference at this length? Are you guys running lengths this long of this stuff, and does the $10 upcharge for wire length cover a length this long? Thanks guys...
 

Silvertip

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Sep 22, 2003
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28,771
Re: Tiny tach wire length question.

Tiny Tachs are not intended to be located great distances from the engine. The sense wire is wrapped around the spark plug wire to trigger the tack. With a long length of wire you would be radiating ignition noise throughout the boat since that wire would be like a transmitting antenna. Better check the tiny tach site to see if the unit can be remotely located. an internal battery powers the unit.
 

sutor623

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May 23, 2011
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Re: Tiny tach wire length question.

Tiny Tachs are not intended to be located great distances from the engine. The sense wire is wrapped around the spark plug wire to trigger the tack. With a long length of wire you would be radiating ignition noise throughout the boat since that wire would be like a transmitting antenna. Better check the tiny tach site to see if the unit can be remotely located. an internal battery powers the unit.

Gotcha. I was thinking about maybe keeping it a portable unit so that I can keep an eye out on all of my motors. Really, once you find the rev point, and get your prop setup correct, what else do you need it for? Im pretty sure once you get used to the sound of the motor at WOT you will just know if it isnt running in its optimum range. If anything I figured, like you said, the wire would be creating noise and interfere with any other components that I had (fish finder transducer, or radio)
 

sutor623

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Re: Tiny tach wire length question.

Well, I talked to a service tech at tinytach. They will only charge the $10 up to 25' of wire. In order for these to work on multi-cylinder engines, you need to get the filter (free of charge) and the filter will prevent any interference created by the wire. So according to the tech it is good to go. They have sold many tachs with wires in excess of 20'.
 

EriccirE

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Feb 23, 2011
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Re: Tiny tach wire length question.

You will be fine with extending the wire on these inductive tachometers. Just try it out!
 

John_S

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Jun 21, 2004
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Re: Tiny tach wire length question.

IMHO, a digital tach is not a good substitute for an analog tach at the dash, for normal operations. I have TT clone that can be used on different engines, has sellectable built in filters, and will hold the high rpm value, once you shut it off. ie you can do wot runs and not even have to try to read the changing digits. Thats how I've used it on two dfferent console boats. On the tiller outboards, you can read it, but usually shut the engine off to see the peak reading anyway. The biggest value I think you will find at the dash, is a constant "in your face" hours meter. It will make it much harder to miss the hours based maintenance items.
 
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