Raymarine Tillerpilot not very waterproof.

Plum

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My Raymarine ST2000+ tiller pilot has let water in around the buttons and I have had to pay to have a new circuit board fitted, and the buttons re-seated, two months after the warranty expired. Raymarine said that there was no manufacturing defect and no design problem so my obvious conclusion is that the product is not designed to be very waterproof and it can happen again (They knocked a third off the bill as a good-will gesture when I complained). Therefore my question is: has anyone got an idea of how to add additional waterproofing to the tiller pilot? My solution would be a giant transparent condom that envelopes the entire tiller pilot, baggy at the pushrod so as not to restrict it and a nice roll-fit along the body, but no-one appears to make one that big! Any ideas?
 

jeanne

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I have thrown away a few tiller/auto pilots, and my understanding is that none of them are waterproof. Even if the buttons are waterproof, which one would hope is so, when the piston extends, it must suck in salty sea air, if it is not to form a vacuum.
My first aid solution , which I believe has helped, is to cut an arm from an old oilie jacket , glue a clear plastic panel into it where the buttons are, so they may be seen and operated through it, and put a drawstring at the end the stop it moving about.
Clearly this is too much like 1960´s PBO articles to be acceptable today, when one supposed to buy a ´special´designer solution costing ónly´ 59.99 to achieve the same result.
But I commend it to the house!
 

ashanta

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This is quite disturbing for me as I have just bought a Raymarine ST2000. I have owned an Autohelm ST1000 for the past 7-8 yrs and I have only just started to have probs but not water ingress. I thought it was the same body and materials. I must admit it's been my right hand and I hope the Raytheon will be just as good?
 

stevebirch2002

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Vega secretary, Diana Webb, made some covers for these autopilots at a very reasonable price.

Thi one is in Red but usually blue. Made from sprayhood material with acrylic window.

AutopilotCover.jpg
 

aidancoughlan

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My new(ish - last year) ST2000 got wet on our annual cruise a few weeks ago, and has given up the ghost since :-(.
Havnt tried sending it back to Raymarine yet, although they were very helpfull in refurbishing an old one as a spare last year.

Seems a bit ridiculous if they're not designed to get wet and survive.
 

scarlett

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I covered mine with a part of a reflective and padded supermarket bag designed to take your frozen goods home. It was origonally designed to keep the sun off the whole thing in the Med because it go so hot you could not touch it but it had a peak it the rod end which gave some protection to the rod entry point. It doesn't need a big peak because actual movement of the rod underway is usually a few millimetres.

It dated from the late eighties or early ninties and broke down in 1998. The plastic gears wore out. I bought metal ones from Raymarine and was still working without a problem when I sold it with the boat in 2002. Doing several thousand miles solo it got a lot of work.
 

webcraft

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Everyone we have met with a Raymarine has complained about the same thing.

We have had our Simrad TP10 for four years after buying it second hand on Ebay for £100. It has done thousands of miles without complaint. It is a bit clapped out now, but still working after the small pulley was glued back on with liquid metal.

We will be getting another Simrad rather than a Raymarine.
 

cliff

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[ QUOTE ]
Everyone we have met with a Raymarine has complained about the same thing.

[/ QUOTE ]No... Must disagree with your blanket statement about people with Raymarine tiller pilots. If they have a ST1000 or ST2000 then possibly, as they are the lower end of the range and have the controls mounted on/in the actuator itself, which IMHO is a serious weakness in the design, however the ST4000 (sadly now discontinued) has the controls / display mounted seperately as do the "replacement" S1 series units.

I have an old AH1000 unit as "backup" for the ST4000 and I have not had any problems with water ingress into the actuators even though they have been soaked frequently (in both cases the control heads are mounted out of harm's way so apart from a little spray stay reasonably dry)

I think it extremely unjustified to decry all Raymarine tiller pilots solely on the basis you have bought one of the the cheapest models in the range which can suffer from from water ingress through the control buttons.
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webcraft

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Cliff,

You should have read my post more carefully.

OK, I will modify it slightly . . . everyone we have met who has mentioned having a Raymarine ST1000 or ST2000 tiller pilot has complained about water ingress.

People who have had no problem have ofcourse not mentioned it . . . but lots of people have told us theirs /thier mates leaked.

We DONT have one - we have a TP10, a cheap tiller pilot with the controils mounted in the unit, but one which does not suffer from water ingress.

As far as I was aware the original post was specifically about the ST2000??? Obviously units where the controls can be separately mounted are less likely to suffer form this problem, but as far as I can see the Raymarine 1000 and 2000 series are not fit for purpose as they leak.

- Nick
 

cliff

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[ QUOTE ]
but as far as I can see the Raymarine 1000 and 2000 series are not fit for purpose as they leak.

- Nick

[/ QUOTE ]I agree, which is one reason I don't have either of them. An acquaintance had a similar Simrad (TP22 - buttons on the top) leaked like a sieve after a while, fine when new but......
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Our Simrad TP10 (which we bought 2nd hand) has steered our 27ft boat several thousand miles in the last four years in all sorts of weather including regular soakings - never a problem. We had it apart five or six weeks ago in Horta to use liquid metal to glue the little pulley wheel back on. Since then it has done at least another 500 miles steering in all sorts of weather and still isn't leaking. As soon as we get home I am buying another one and keeping this one as a spare.

A friend in Horta told us he had been talking to a guy on another boat who had no less than three Raymarine tillerpilots all u/s - he has one himself, and knows the score. He told the guy to open them up and leave them in the sun to get them working again. In the UK this year an oven on a low heat might be better, or if you are in a marina the hot air hand dryer in the toilets.

People don't rate the Simrad because the Raymarine is more sophisticated electronically, can be interfaced, remote control etc - but all that isn't much use when the circuit board shorts out! The TP10 ranks as one of our top pieces of kit over the last year's 5000 miles cruising.
 

charles_reed

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All tillerpilots

with a keypad on the actuator suffer from the problem of water entry and PCB having to be replaced.

Rather than pick on Raymarine, the same criticism can be levelled (in my experience) at Navico/Simrad.

It appears to be a fact of life that no-one can make a permanently waterproof keyboard system.

That's why, for the last 15 years, I've had a separate control head, mounted in a relatively protected position in the main companionway.
 

sona

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Re: My experience

I am looking to buy a tiller pilot and keep changing my mind on buying a Simrad tp22 or Raymarine sp1000. The problem of unit failure due to water or other is the causing my problem on deciding which one to buy. I welcome opinions.
Also would a little silicone grease or vaseline in the vulnerable area help the water resistance?
 

Plum

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If it is still within guarantee then send it back ASAP as I got a bill for £172 from Raymarine to repair mine a few months after the guarantee ran out.
 
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