Autohelm 3000 wiring

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2mako

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Hello, I know, old topic but I’ll give it a shot; I’m trying to puzzle together two gens of Autohelm parts. I have an ok motor from an older analog Autohelm 3000 (cup-shaped control unit with compass-rose) and an ok control unit from a slightly newer Autohelm 3000 (square with with buttons). To make them work together I need to do modification to the wiring so that the motor unit (comes with 4 wires if I’m correct) fits to the 2-pin connection on the newer control unit. I know this has been done before but the knowledge surrounding these older helms are fading.. Any hints or help in this matter would be very appreciate, thanks in advance!
 
I can't help directly but we have an Autohelm 2000 of the newer type with buttons.

The lead from it to the tiller arm has two wires. The unit simply applies positive and negative one way or the other for the required steering effect.
 
Ok, thanks, but I still need to find out how to make the 4 wires from the existing motor connect to the 2 wires from the unit
 
I did exactly what you are wanting to do so you are on the right track. I used an Autohelm 4000 square box on my old 3000 previously with the round control unit. There is a differene in the number of wires but this was 20 years ago and I do not recall how the connections worked, I will give it some thought but I expect you will get an answere from the forum within the day!
 
As far as I understand autopilot motor drives usually have two wires for motor power and another two if there is a clutch. As far as I can tell (from the old service manuals) an Autohelm 3000 wheel drive has a two pin plug. If my understanding is correct you have a type of 3000 wheel drive motor which has a four pin plug? Does the plug look original? Can you check if all pins are connected?

It would help if you could post pictures of what you have (or a link to similar).
 
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Hello, there are no “2-pin plug“ in the old Autohelm 3000, just a fixed cable between control unit and motor. For some reason there are 4 wires in this cable and the newer control unit only instead have two wire/pin connection. I might add that there are two different models that are both named Autohelm 3000 -the oldest version have a round control unit with a compass rose on top. The slightly newer version has a square control unit with buttons. The newer model have a 2 pin removable connection between motor and control unit. The old version instead have a 4 wire fixed cable between motor and control unit. Both models share the same motor (so I’m told). The confusion lies in how to make the two version work together, it’s been done before as already mentioned in this tread.
 
Hello again, Autohelm 3000 wiring problem still unsolved, I give it one more try to put this tread back to life. Any hints would be appreciate!
 
I would first check if the four wires are actually connected at the motor end as I’m not sure why they would need to use four as a dc motor just needs to be swapped to reversed direction.
 
Good thought Daverw! I will have a closer look at the motor unit and see what’s actually connected. Thanks
 
Daverw said:
I would first check if the four wires are actually connected at the motor end as I’m not sure why they would need to use four as a dc motor just needs to be swapped to reversed direction.
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I would think that all the wires are in use. I couldn't see autohelm spending money on 4 core cable when not required. I am wondering whether two of the wires are some form of simple feedback to the controller to indicate that the unit has responded?
 
If they do turn out to be feed back loop then leave them disconnect with new controller as they don’t have feed back in later units.
 
Just had a quick play around with my very old autohelm 3000 motor (from the original round dial controller). The motor has 4 wires, red, blue, green and yellow. The red and blue drive the motor in either direction whilst the green and yellow seem to do nothing. If the green and yellow are feed back I'm not to sure how to test them. I looked at the electric motor but couldn't get the end off where the wires actually go into the motor itself. The motor itself does seem to be a very nicely made swiss unit as per picture. It's the black end bit that I struggled with but will have another go later.
 

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Boathook - First of all thank you for your efforts so far, at the moment I’m away from my boat so your investigation are invaluable to me, very interesting if you come up with anything.
 
Based on Boathooks effort I found another pic online (page unfortunately for me is in Dutch so translation remains). Pic shows exactly the same motor unit as Boathooks motor. Even the markings match. This pic only shows two connections (red/ black) under the end cap. These are most likely power supply for the drive. Unfortunately this only added to the confusion so far. Any thoughts?DEF1655D-811D-46BB-B600-52403F74FA52.jpeg
 
Forgot to mention that the motor in the pic is from an analogue Autohelm 1000 tiller pilot. Apparently they used the same motor in different models.
 
2mako said:
Based on Boathooks effort I found another pic online (page unfortunately for me is in Dutch so translation remains). Pic shows exactly the same motor unit as Boathooks motor. Even the markings match. This pic only shows two connections (red/ black) under the end cap. These are most likely power supply for the drive. Unfortunately this only added to the confusion so far. Any thoughts?View attachment 90135
Click to expand...
I still think that the yellow and green are some form of feed back. There seems to be more to my motor on the back end under the black cover than shown on your picture. I would try just connecting the red and blue (in my case) to the respective wires on your controller and see what's happens. If the wires are connected the correct way it should hopefully work correctly. If not try reversing the wires ....
 
I also think there’s more under that black cover on yours/mine motor. Seams highly unlikely the yellow and green would just do nothing. I think you may be correct in the thought regarding feedback, in that case there should be more components under the cover. An other thought I had is that the power-reversing to the motor making it spin both ways for some reason is supported via dual cables (the positive and negative feed only goes “one way” from the control unit and therefore needs 4 wires). This seams overcomplicated though. I will get my hands on my own drive unit next week and will try to get under that back cover immediately, I’m growing curious to the solution ?
 
2mako said:
I also think there’s more under that black cover on yours/mine motor. Seams highly unlikely the yellow and green would just do nothing. I think you may be correct in the thought regarding feedback, in that case there should be more components under the cover. An other thought I had is that the power-reversing to the motor making it spin both ways for some reason is supported via dual cables (the positive and negative feed only goes “one way” from the control unit and therefore needs 4 wires). This seams overcomplicated though. I will get my hands on my own drive unit next week and will try to get under that back cover immediately, I’m growing curious to the solution ?
Click to expand...
Seen this ? Motor seems the same .....
Autohelm 2000 Tillerpilot Pot style wiring
 
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