Eeyore
Well-Known Member
Can anyone tell me the spec differences between the Raymarine SPX-5 and the SPX-5 Sport apart from about £250, and does anyone have recent experience of fitting either?
Raymarine SPX Wheelpilot
- Thread starter Eeyore
- Start date
pvb
Well-Known Member
The Sport version uses the SportDrive system, integrated with the steering wheel.
whipper_snapper
Well-Known Member
Yes, recently fitted the SPX-5. Dead straight forward, not much to say about it!
Twister_Ken
Well-Known Member
Sport is, I think, for sporty motorboats.
Eeyore
Well-Known Member
OK thanks guys. I'll be ordering the SPX-5 to be delivered around Christmas time! The Sport version will obviously not do for me as I have a wooden steering wheel.
pvb
Well-Known Member
Not sure whether you mean a wooden rimmed or wooden spoked wheel, but you ought to check that the wheel drive unit will fit your wheel - it's primarily designed for slimmish metal spokes on the wheel.
whipper_snapper
Well-Known Member
Mine is just screwed onto an all wooden wheel.
Boathook
Well-Known Member
Nice to hear that it screws into wood as I'm just about to purchase a spx-5 but with the rudder angle feed back thingy. I've been advised that it will make the pilot steering even better ........................
BrianH
Well-Known Member
I fitted an S1 wheel pilot four years ago, which seems similar to the SPX-5 but with the rudder sensor.
On all models the wheel attachments for the drum and motor are designed for a thin-spoked metal wheel and I had to source long bolts and drill matching holes to extension fillets to fit to my wooden wheel.
I documented the whole installation here.
On all models the wheel attachments for the drum and motor are designed for a thin-spoked metal wheel and I had to source long bolts and drill matching holes to extension fillets to fit to my wooden wheel.
I documented the whole installation here.
Boathook
Well-Known Member
Thanks for that link. Will have a read in the near future.
whipper_snapper
Well-Known Member
It was about 1 year ago that I fitted ours. I cannot recall any issue at all with mounting the drive to the all wood wheel. I used a plywood disk screwed to the wheel to take the drum, the 'drum' was bolted to the disk. The only 'challenge' I had was making a hardwood wedge to allow me to mount the computer vertically on a sloping surface.
Amusingly, your site is blocked by my provider with:
No idea if that is real.
BrianH
Well-Known Member
Not "amusingly" at all to me ... rather worrying, in fact. The site is hosted as home pages on my ISP, Cablecom Hispeed, one of the major Swiss providers and very stringent with its virus and spam protection. Maybe I'll contact OpenDNS. Thanks for the heads-up.
Edit: Just checked with my AVG browser tool - all green, "AVG Safe : This page contains no active threats". Phew....
Edit2: Installed McAfee Site Advisor and it too, gave a clean bill of health - "35 green downloads. In our tests, we found downloads on this site were free of adware, spyware, and other potentially unwanted programs."
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Blue Fox
Well-Known Member
Mine works perfectly without that feedback thing, so worth the cost ....?
BrianH
Well-Known Member
I suspect the software was improved after my system to be able to dispense with the rudder sensor. Good thing too, it changed a simple installation into a difficult one on my boat.
It was all a bit strange, the precursor to my system was the ST4000 Mk 2, the kit of which was without the sensor, then there was my S1 SmartPilot with one, plus the introduction of the computer module. Then all successive models dispensed with a mandatory rudder sensor, which became a non-essential add-on.
There were one or two times this year when the rudder sensor failed to deliver a signal to the computer and the complete unit refused to work, so the functionality is critical to my installation.
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