Autohelm 800

[Guest]

I have an Autohelm 800 which is 'stuck' in its maximum retracted position. Does anyone know how to deal with this, or why it might have occurred?
Does anyone have a user's or service manual for this model?
Many thanks.

 

[tony_brighton]

I used to have an Autohelm 800 on my first boat. Had a similar problem; when I phoned Autohelm they said it wasn't economical to fix and offered me a large discount off an Autohelm 1000 - which I took advantage of.

 

[Peter_the_Grate]

The 800 is quite a simple device. Take off the compass rose (single screw in the centre), remove the screws that hold the red and black halves of the body together and lift off the red "top" half. You should then be able to turn the mechanism by hand and free it. Don't disturb the compass mechanism or the feedback string - you'll see what that is when the unit is open. You might clean and add some grease to the gears whilst it's open. Reassemble in reverse order.
Regis in Cowes on the IOW are very helpful: they sent me a replacement string and assembly instructions when mine broke, free of charge.
One last thing, the unit is more power "sensitive" than you might think. I tried testing it at home using a battery charger as a power supply and it only worked in one direction. When connected to a battery it worked normally.

 

[philip_stevens]

Peter,
Re your battery charger. I'm not saying yours is, but some only use a half wave rectifier circuit to produce DC. This could make it unsuitable to run DC equipment without a battery to act as a stabilising capacitor.

Just a thought, as I've had equiment fail to work on a battery charger alone - without a battery connected.

regards,
Philip

 

[Modulation]

Go to the website www.raymarine.com. You can download manuals for all their products, or, alternatively, they have a technical advice service which you can access through a link called something like "my stuff".
I found them very good.