SPX5 pilot- settings. (If you are happy with yours!)

[yachtbits]

I'll reply to multiple posts here, with answers and some options.

1. in an ideal world, the RFU will be mounted beside the rudder post, with its arm parallel to the tiller arm. The link bar will be attached to both , an equal distance from their pivot points. (real world does not always equal ideal world)

2. dunedin, did the dealer test the drive whilst onboard and did he conduct a full recommission and seatrial??

3. "just a matter of the correct settings..." There are 3 variables in the installation and set-up of an autopilot that are completely out of the control of the manufacturer. a. the boat, b. the installer, c. the user. Therefore, there is no standard settings.

4. a correctly installed and serviceable SPX-5 autopilot is more than capable of maintaining course holding down to a matter of meters. I've commissioned numerous autopilots including SPX-5 wheel in the river at Lowestoft, which is only around 75mtrs wide. I expect to be able to set a zig-zag route on the plotter and the pilot to follow it even in this amount of space. A 30-40 foot fin keel yacht, I would expect to be able to do 180° in this river, just by changing the heading on the pilot, under motor, with or without RFU. If you are not achieving this, you have a problem.

5. comparison to smartphones - Apple said it sold a record 47.8 million iPhones during the 13-week period ending Dec. 29, 2012. With that kind of volume they will be smaller, cheaper and more advanced, but they still can't drive an autopilot drive.

Conclusions:
We have established that your pilot does not work as expected, even under motor.
We can eliminate the "boat" variable as a cause your boat is a standard fin keel with lewmar/whitlock steering.

So, there are 3 remaining possibilities.
1. It has not been installed and commissioned correctly correctly
2. someone has buggered up the settings
3. the SPX-5 course computer is faulty.

I suggest you get someone to help you recommission the pilot, right from "page 1". One set of eyes for the boat, and one for the pilot (and handbook)
If it still fails, contact Raymarine Customer Service, re: course computer fault.

Once your initial issues are resolved, I would however still fit the RFU, particularly on a lighter fin keeler like yours.

I've said all I'm going to on this matter, it is up to you if to take or ignore my advice.

Kevin

 

[skyflyer]

Kevin

Thanks very much for that; I would not take issue with anything you say

I am a technical professional and use kit like this on a daily basis so am in absolutely no doubt that the commissioning process has been done correctly. I noted the resulting settings, reset it and did it again (on different days in different conditions) and the same settings resulted.

The installation was done by a Raymarine approved installer (I could easily have done it myself but I wanted to get the extended 3 year warranty) but he ran out of time and weather to do the on water commissioning. We discusssed the necessary process beforehand as well, before I ran the calibration and auto learn myself

I think that pretty well eliminate items 1 and 2 on your list of possible problems which means we are left with the conclusion I had already come to - the computer is faulty.

I have written to Raymarine today with a history of the problem and asked them to take the unit back under warranty for checking. The guy who installed it implied that if they didnt find a fault I would get charged and of course he would then charge for his time to remove and re-install it.

It might be quite unrelated but when the unit was delivered it kept blowing a fuse and we found that the two fuses (motor 10A, electronics 2A IIRC) had been transposed inside. Also the rubber boot that covers the junction between the cable and the back of the wheelpilot motor was perished. This does make me wonder if it was a previously returned and refurbished unit as we purchased direct from Raymarine at a discount following an issue with our original supplier having gone bust and losing our money.

I wouldnt trust the current pilot to keep us within 70ft of a course line in flat water and flat calm at the moment!

Thanks again - what you have said has helped crystallise my thoughts.

 

[guernseyman]

...snip... Also the rubber boot that covers the junction between the cable and the back of the wheelpilot motor was perished. ...snip...

That rubber boot is not fit for purpose. Is there a better solution than patching it with insulating tape?

 

[skyflyer]

I got them to replace it for free, but that meant pulling the entire wiring out and re-connecting the new cable between the motor and course computer, as the connector will not detach from the cable and is too large to thread through stanchions etc. and the boot will not stretch over the connector. I had to pay for that of course as they wouldn't cover that under warranty; To be frank I wasn't over impressed that the professional installer didnt spot it before he put it in in the first place! (of course if he had he would have had to re-schedule the work which would have interfered with other planned work perhaps?)

 

[dunedin]

I'll reply to multiple posts here, with answers and some options.

2. dunedin, did the dealer test the drive whilst onboard and did he conduct a full recommission and seatrial??

Kevin

Thanks for your input. When the replacement wheel drive was fitted (due to the usual bust bits of plastic belt guides) I don't think a full recommission was done - it was assumed to be just a plug in. But as it didn't seem to work well at their suggestion I redid the calibration as best I could - the motoring in circles etc and went through each of the setup options comparing back to the manual. Also tried adjusting any of the ones that looked relevant, then reset back to default when it didn't help. To no avail

The dealer suggested fitting the rudder sensor as a last attempt before we headed off on our summer cruise - and to be fair they squeezed this in but had no opportunity to do a sea trial. Again I have been back through all the systems options I can find.

Is there a specific recommission routine that I can go through. I am rather loathe to throw more good money after bad on engineer time if not going to help

 

[yachtbits]

Hmmm, not the best story I heard!

Personally, it it had been a local installation we'd done, I would have found an hour to go and test it with you, especially as the seatrial wasn't done in the first place. If it is faulty, it would be a Raymarine warranty funded job for him. But, it isn't me.

If you don't get progress as a result of your letter, PM me and i'll see if I can help.

Good luck

Kevin

 

[jaysea105]

Skyflyer- did you sort your pilot out? I'm having the same symptoms with a new system and wondered if you'd found the cause?

I have the evolution compass, ACU-100, wheel pilot and p70 display with rudder reference fitted. It snakes ~10degs either side of the course, ~30degs either side of a tracked waypoint and ~45degs either side of a wind course. Have spoken with Raymarine 3 times and tried all suggestions without success so far. It makes only very slight adjustments to the course and eventually overcorrects and then the pendulum action around the course begins. If I ask it to make a significant turn such as 90degs it takes about 4 minutes at best.

 

[skyflyer]

I "sorted it out' by fitting a below decks autopilot. Evo, ACU200, Type 1 drive, P70 and RRU. Actually its a different hull, ( I sold my share in the original boat and bought exactly the same model, same age but 100% mine - its a/p was u/s ) but the original hull still has the same set-up (SPX5, wheel pilot but no RRU) and is no better.

I don't know the subtle software differences (if any) between the ACU100 and 200 (I know 100 has lower power and no clutch controller) but so far i have been very impressed with the new set up and have attributed it (possibly wrongly) to the RRU as we didn't have one on the old boat.

But what you say makes me wonder if your compass is behaving correctly? If you are steering manually and you have the heading showing on the P70 does it behave erratically or do you get a nice steady rate of increase or decrease in heading as you turn at a constant rate?

I used the 'dockside' wizard to set up the whole shebang and had no issues. With an RRU there is no need to do the "time for full travel" set-up, and if it has correctly sensed the RRU it shouldn't offer you that option anyway.

You've probably tried all this, but maybe a factory reset and start again?

Oh - one final thing - does the a/p network have a feed to indicate boat speed? My GPS feeds into the SeatalkNG network to give it SOG output. That might be essential fir good performance - I don't know.

 

[yachtbits]

The Evo pilots work in a very different way to the previous pilots. Much more of the processing is done in the vessel sensor, the white "compass" sensor. The ACU is power supplies and motor driver.

On the p70, look for the "About Pilot" page and scroll down to the bottom. Check compass deviation is below 10°. If it reads 188° it has not calibrated the compass. This is the most common cause of problems.

The Evo pilots MUST have a SOG input in order to calibrate them. If you are trying to set it up as a free standing "point and shoot" pilot, stop now as you won't get it working right.

So, check;
you have SOG in the p70 screen
check deviation reading
re-do "rudder test" and make sure it passes.

If all that is correct, "Reset Compass" and then go and do a couple of "figure of eights" maintaining 3.5knts SOG, then check deviation. If Deviation is sub 10° it should work just fine.

Kevin

 

[jwilson]

When I bought my Jeanneau the dealer fitted ST4000 wheelpiot had been installed with the motor power fed via the Seatalk cables. It hunted a lot, and I spent some time tweaking the settings to get it to work half-way adequately. Then the control head died and I had a new one fitted, at which point the local engineer found that the motor did not have it's own power supply. Since then it has worked considerably better: in flat water it holds course to within a degree or two, though the little clackety noises get irritating. In any sort of sea it struggles, but that's the weedy and slow-geared motor that is common to ST4000 and SPX wheel drives.

 

[jaysea105]

thanks for all the suggestions- on the 4th call to Raymarine they suggested I switch the speed input from Speed to SOG and plug the rudder reference directly into the pilot rather than the ITC5 data hub. After I did that, it all works perfectly!