Sierra Marine Eclipse 3-Inch Tachometer with Built-In Hourmeter

The Sierra Marine Eclipse tachometer keeps your engine speed and your running hours on the same 3-inch dial, so you get two of the numbers that matter most at a single glance. It's a full-sweep electric gauge that reads 0 to 7000 RPM, with a black face, black bezel, and a crisp white pointer needle. Perimeter lighting ties into your existing dash dimmer, and the whole front is sealed to IP65 so a face full of spray on a rough day won't bother it.

This is an analog tach built for real boats. The full-sweep needle travels the entire dial instead of the short arc you get on some economy gauges, which makes small RPM changes easy to see when you're dialing in a plane or holding a trolling speed. The built-in hourmeter counts up right on the dial, so you always know when the next oil change or service interval is coming due. No guessing, and no separate meter to find room for.

Who's this for? Anybody repowering an older console, swapping out a cracked or fogged factory gauge, or building a helm from scratch on a center console, runabout, or pontoon. It's a 12-volt DC gauge, so it drops into just about any modern gas setup that puts out a tach signal off the coil, the ECU, or a compatible sender. Wire in switched 12V, a good ground, and the signal wire, and you're most of the way there.

Mounting is straightforward. The gauge is built for a standard 3-inch opening, so it swaps cleanly into most existing tach holes and lines up with the rest of a 3-inch gauge cluster. Behind the dash, plan for the depth of the can plus your wiring, so check your console clearance before you cut. The perimeter lighting runs off your dash dimmer circuit, which keeps the whole helm looking uniform after dark. On some pulse-dimmer panels the light can flicker, and running the light feed off a constant 12V source clears that right up.

A couple of honest notes from folks who've installed these. On some outboards the needle can bounce a little at idle, and an inline tach filter usually settles it down. The hourmeter counts any time the ignition is hot, not just when the engine is actually turning, so if you want your hours to reflect true runtime, a lot of owners tie it to an oil-pressure switch or a relay. Give the back terminals a shot of dielectric grease and heat-shrink your connections, and they'll stay corrosion-free for years. None of that is a knock on the gauge. It's just how a simple, reliable electric tach works.

The black-face, white-needle look is clean and matches most modern helms. In direct overhead sun it can be a touch harder to read than a white face, so if your dash sits wide open with no hardtop, keep that in mind. Under a hardtop or on a console with any shade, it's sharp and easy to read day or night.

This version doesn't carry peak-memory recall or an over-rev warning light. It's a straight-ahead tach and hourmeter. If you're running a high-output engine and want over-rev alerts, handle that with a separate warning gauge or your engine's own display. For the vast majority of gas outboards, sterndrives, and inboards, a clean 0 to 7000 RPM sweep and an honest hour count is exactly what you want at the helm.

Sierra has been supplying OEM engine builders and boat manufacturers for decades, and their gauges are engineered to meet or exceed the original part they replace. That's the whole idea behind the Eclipse line. It looks at home on the dash, it stands up to life on the water, and it gives you the readings you actually use. Rig it up once and forget about it.