RayMarine Wheel Pilot!!!

[mandlmaunder]

Recently purchased a Raymarine SPX5 smartpilot in Virginia US for the delivery of a hunter 34 to USVI's
The delivery is another story , but the pilot failed 4 days into our delivery and failed so badly that the only action that could be taken was to remove the wheel so that the wheelpilot could be removed while at sea. Not a great idea but the only option as it was impeding the steering.
Sent it to Raymarine in Newhampshire US 3 weeks ago and have just heard back from them that the unit will be replaced under warrenty all I have to cover is the additional cost of postage. Not happy about having to pay the post but at least the unit is being replaced.
So all in all a good result for us and good customer relations for them.
They haven't said why the bearings fell out only that replacement was going to happen. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[lw395]

Sounds like they have sold you a dud and you are paying for them to send you another one the same. Does not sound that good. Will you trust the new unit to last?

 

[radarman]

We tried one out recently and found out that in its furthest away position the servo motor introduced an offset of 40deg into the compass. When contacted they suggested that we strip it down and check the internal screen. On doing this we found that the screen appeared too short and once we had reassembled it we found that the deviation went the other way!!

Sent it back and we are now waiting on a response / refund!

 

[jstr]

I ordered mine at the January 2008 Excel Boat Show, with delivery promised for April 2008. It finally arrived in November, and I commissioned it replacing my ageing 4000 in January 2009.

It ran well for 3 months, when it went intermittent and got steadily worse. Initially we thought it was the motor as it said "MOT STALL" (not listed in the manual) but a replacment motor was not the solution and finally, we replaced the cousre computer and I commissioned that last weekend.

I hope it lasts for our summer cruise in a fortnight, but am a little apprehensive.

Throughout, my dealer (Greenham Regis) have been very helpful, although communications with Raymarine seem to be painfully slow.

It's the inconvenience that urks me and hand-steering 15 hours back from St. Vaast in little wind recently was not enjoyable.

Any other tales out there we should know about?

 

[lw395]

Perhaps the technical staff who were made redundant a while back were doing something useful after all?
Sounds increasingly like the development never got finished.
A real shame, they used to be the obvious supplier for a cruising yacht autopilot.

 

[Blue Fox]

Since I have the SPX5 my binnacle compass has a deviation of about 20 degrees. More or less depending on the course. Is there a screen around the servomotor to prevent deviation? How can I get to it to check?
i have to say that apart from this the device is working very well, nicely coping with rough seastate.

 

[Sultans_Kapitein]

Too many 'bad' post about this bit of kit, I think I would look for an alternative.

Mal