Raymarine wheel pilot compass display accuracy?

[slipknot]

My 10m Beneteau has a Smart-Pilot SPX5 system (wheeldrive) with a ST6002 control head. Its had its seatrial calibration and the compass heading adjusted to a known transit. Everything works as it should (at the moment.....)

Ive been trying to find out how accurate/reliable the compass display on the control head is but cant really find out anything.

Am I right in thinking that the fluxgate compass is not effected by deviation so the values displayed on the control head are correct?

Does the display remain accurate through 360 deg?

Is the displayed value reliable enough to use as your main compass display, backed up by your primary compass, or vise versa?

Any guidance appreciated

 

[[70521]]

Any guidance appreciated

When you get out on the water check it against a number of transits and your GPS.

Our setup is the same and recalibrated it every couple of months.

 

[Rappey]

I have an older autohelm with a 6000+ display, which obviously shows compass bearing. I swung the boat and got a very low deviation number
I also have a self contained gps analogue display log which shows course .
Both the log and autopilot show no more than one degree difference between them in any direction.
Both are within 5 degrees of the magnetic compass (which ive not swung)

 

[prv]

Am I right in thinking that the fluxgate compass is not effected by deviation so the values displayed on the control head are correct?

The fluxgate will be affected by deviation, but I think the circling process in the sea trial essentially does the electronic equivalent of building a deviation card which is then used in subsequent display.

Is the displayed value reliable enough to use as your main compass display, backed up by your primary compass, or vise versa?

I would say it’s accurate enough - I‘m almost always on autopilot on a long passage, usually on a heading hold, and I end up where I expect. Certainly more accurately than steering by hand looking at a swinging card.

If you wanted to use it to steer by, though, I don’t think the number on the control head would be at all intuitive to use. Raymarine used to make a dedicated Seatalk display for this purpose, with a swinging needle. You’d lock in the desired course and then steer to keep the needle straight up. It could even give an average course actually steered at the end of the watch, for the navigator to update his DR with...

Pete

 

[Rappey]

As i found out the trouble with an electronic compass readout is when your sailing 5 knts speed and the tide is 5 knts against you (you know the tide is going to change soon) the electronic compass is useless as your not moving so it cant give a bearing so you have no idea what direction to take?
I usually point the boat where i want to go via the chart plotter, then just engage the autopilot regardless of its reading..

 

[prv]

As i found out the trouble with an electronic compass readout is when your sailing 5 knts speed and the tide is 5 knts against you (you know the tide is going to change soon) the electronic compass is useless as your not moving so it cant give a bearing so you have no idea what direction to take?

You‘re describing CoG from a GPS, not heading from a compass. An electronic compass works perfectly well when stationary.

Pete

 

[Daverw]

We have two electronic compass on board and both are rarely more than 2 deg out from each other in any direction, one is with auto pilot EV1 and other heading compass for chartplotter,

 

[Boathook]

I have an XPS 5 pilot and the compass display is roughly the same as my main compass that seems accurate enough without having been swung. I would not like to use the pilot display as the main compass as it is just a set of numbers rather than a needle. Raymarine did do a gps compass but it required a special 3 head gps receiver so that it would persumably work when not moving. Another problem with electronics is that it,the pilot, throws a wobbly and decides to alter the heading figures and the pilot then follows this. A complete power down of the pilot is then required to bring back to 'proper life'.