Autohelm tiller pilot 1000+

[starboard]

Sailing mainly singlehanded I find my Autohelm tiller pilot invaluable. After 5 years sterling service today it has started to mis-behave! When going to auto from standby the tiller arm slowly starts to extend and therefore turns the yacht to starboard. Inside the box of tricks is a motor, worm drive, circuit board and a very small elctro compass. As the arm drives ok I am beggining to suspect the compass unit, however as I cannot get a reply from Raymarine I wonder if anyone else has suffered this problem?

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[steve28]

Does it only do this when going to standby ?
I would imagine that one of the drive transistors is going leaky.
Raymarine in the uk would be the ones to speak to.If you dial the 02392 693611 and speak to the nice female operator and ask to speak to someone in uk technical.
From what i have heard they are a good company and quite often wil repair the goods even after quite a period of time for free.


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[bedouin]

If you leave things without intervening in Auto mode does it continue to turn, and if so does the off course alarm go off eventually (assuming it has an off course alarm)

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[starboard]

The pilot when set to auto just continues to push the ram to hard over and therefore turns the yacht to stbd. I have just managed to get through to Raymarine and the nice American man thinks it may be the memory board has failed. The problem seems that the only way to repair is to return to factory. It appears you cannot purchase new board and diy fix...this would seem easy as all cables are push fit on and to replace the board would only take a couple of mins. Any one know if I can source a new board?

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[steve28]

From a previos post~: /
I believe Raymarine send some of their their repairs to ;

Greenham Regis Electronics
Shamrock Quay
William St
Soton SO14 5QL

keith@greenham-regis.com

maybe worth a try.

also i would leave the case open in a hot place airing cupboard for a week and try it again in case its condesation thats causing the problem.

steve


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[Becky]

<as I can't get a reply from Raymarine>
Try them again. I went in yesterday and they couldn't have been more helpful. Or fax them perhaps? 023 9269 4642.
E-mail address will be on the web site, www.raymarine.com

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[dbentley]

I had a similar problem a few weeks ago. I took off the cover, and found some corrosion on the circuit board, which could well have been causing shorting across the various circuits on the board. I cleaned this off by rubbing gently with a tissue soaked in white spirit, dried it thoroughly, reassembled, and now the system works fine again.

Worth a try before you have to send it away..

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[oldharry]

Re: Autohelm tiller pilot 1000

I had the same problem with an early Autohelm, and it turned out it was the compass unit that was faulty - an LED in the compass sensor unit had failed. I do not know whether the newer ones work on the same principal, but if so, then the repair is straightforward enough for any competent repair shop. However, best go to Raymarine as they will be able to diagnose it quicker (therefore cheaper!).

However, as you have already opened it, well worth cleaning the contacts on the PCB etc just to make sure its not a little bit of corrosion crept in. Ideally get a tin of contact cleaner spray - useful in the boat electrics, and much better than WD40.

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[Aja]

Exactly the same thing happened to me. It got a soaking and I left iy opened out to dry fro a few weeks. Put it back together again and it duped me into thinking i had saved the day, then shortly after it started going 'hard a starboard' .

Still have it on board as a spare - but to be honest went out and bought a new one as the one that went was an old model without the LCD screen and probably had had its day. Came with the boat and I've had it five years....

Hope this helps.
Regards

Donald

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[frilaens]

I repaired mine after enough drops had damaged the housing sufficiently so that it leaked. A component on the board had corroded and I replaced it. I thought I'd sealed it but it leaked again. This time the board was covered in a whitish residue and I had to give it a good wash and scrub with water to remove it. After drying it out its been OK.

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[DavidGrieves]

I had the autohelm 1000 on my boat, it developed a fault like you describe. Mine was caused by a battery not being fully charged, when checked the domestic battery was down to 9.5V, once the charging problem was fixed the auto pilot worked perfectly...

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[TFJ]

Hit it with a hammer, that should do the trick if not raid your piggy bank, another solution would be to read a thread on page 4 and you will see someone with a different problem has located a ah1000 and may have spares


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