Autohelm 6000 Control Unit needed URGENTLY

B

BrendanChandler

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4 Feb 2003
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Location
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www.brendanchandleryachtdelivery.co.uk
<span style="color:blue"> Hi All,

I have an Autohelm 6000 system and the Control Unit is bust. I am told by the experts that I need to spend several thousand pounds replacing the entire system as spares are no longer available.

Does anybody have a Control Unit for this system?

The existing unit is a non indicating unit (no screen). It is 4.3" (110mm) high and 6.3" (159mm) wide and has the following controls

-1 +1
-10 +10
Standby Auto
A dial for Rudder setting and a single red led which flashes when on standby and is constantly on when the unit is engaged.

The instruction manual says that there are 2 other possible units, one which has a small digital course display and a handheld unit

Brendan Chandler</span>
 
<span style="color:blue">Hi Arun01,

Thanks very much for that.

I have contacted the guy selling this unit which would do the job fine except that I would need a means to connect it to the computer. Presumably I could hard wire it in.

Brendan </span>
 
Brendan, if it's urgent this may not help but Raymarine seem very good on obsolete units. They fix to a component level and if they can't fix it they'll offer you either a reconditioned one or an exchange price on a modern unit.

On my system the control head just plugs into the SeaTalk network. The wiring question marks were all associated with the course computer – have you removed the computer from the system?
 
<span style="color:blue">Hi Colin,

I think that the urgency claim is over rated. We will be sailing from Azores to Ireland in a couple of weeks. We expect long periods of calm as we cross the Azores high and it would have been very nice to have the autopilot working again as the windvane steering will not work without wind. We have, in the past handsteered a complete circuit of the North Atlantic so it really is not the end of the world.

The manual I have for my Autohelm shows the control unit, fluxgate etc wired direct to the computer.
there is a wind instrument set which obviously talks to the log in order that it can produce VMG etc and I guess that that uses seatalk, possibly as a separate stand-alone system. I need to look at the number of connections to the computer but do not think that the wind system is connected.

There is also a Navigation Interface control unit sited near the control unit which was to enable the system to use pre GPS navigation.

No the computer was working fine, it seems to be the control unit which always had a problem with damp which now seems dead.

Brendan </span>
 
No guarantee of similarity of course but on my 11 year old set-up the control head is a simple plug-in connection to the SeaTalk network. The computer seems to get wind/log info from SeaTalk. If you haven't had the computer out then with a bit of luck you’ll only have to connect two plugs to replace the head unit.

Coming back to your original question (!) if it’s not overly urgent then I’d pack it up and send it off to Raymarine in Portsmouth to look at. I think they took 2-3 weeks to get mine back when it died last year (it was the course computer in the end but I sent the control head as well).

Raymarine Company
Anchorage Park, Portsmouth
PO3 5TD, England
Tel +44 (0)23 9269 3611
 
John_morris_uk is correct.

The ST6001+, for example (haven't checked but think that is still the current contoller), works with the older 150/400 and 100/300 course computers .

The manuals say it works and I have done it and it worked. I assume that the experts you talk of were not Raymarine themselves?

John
 
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