ST1000+ installed and working, but....

joe17

joe17

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A few months ago I posted a request for people to share their tillerpilot installations as I was planning the installation of my own. Now after some thought, encounters with the Raymarine accessory catalogue and a bit of work I have finally got mine installed and working. Here is a picture for anyone who is interested

845856c8f06f4f0e82644dd8f5f52356.jpg



So, now comes the but.......

I set out last night on a test sail and sea trial. I did the compass deviation calibration exercise and then headed out to sea with the pilot manning the helm. The wind was quite light so things were going nice and slow giving me time to get used to the thing.

After a while I had to tack and thought I would try the autotack feature. I pressed the buttons as required and the arm shot hard over to starboard to its max extension until it hit some mechanical limit and made a horrible noise as it attempted to extend further than it was capable. A couple of seconds later the fuse in the panel blew and it went quiet and dead.

I swapped out the fuse and the started the thing up again with a mental note not to use the autotack. For the rest of the sail it worked perfectly in standby and auto mode and it really was wonderful to be free of the tiller - enabling things like sail trim and peeling of oranges.

Now I have re read the manual and I guess the problem I encountered was due to the rudder gain and average cruising speed settings being incorrect. At least the speed setting was 8knots and I was doing just over 2 at the time.

Anyway 1 question and 1 rant :

1) Anyone any experience of setting up these settings? Do you think my diagnosis is likely to be right?

2) What the hell were Raymarine thinking when they designed this thing to bash itself to death? The blurb claims this thing has all kinds of intelligence built in so surely someone could have worked out a way to implement some SW end stops to protect itself from itself.
 
Check the initial instructions to do before before sea trial.
It should have (the larger ones do) settings for max rudder angle and the correct angle to apply when auto tacking. IIRC the pilot shouldn't act as the end stop for the rudder movement.
I couldn't work out why I was struggling 'till I found out it was tacking through 125deg.

Cheers
 
AFAIK the thing is unable to detect that the arm is at maximum (or minimum) extension. The only limiting is current limiting of the motor. Bit crap but there you are. Which suggests you're not using the correct sized fuse?

PS: Did you realise they aren't waterproof? Many peeps have made canvas covers for them.
 
[ QUOTE ]
AFAIK the thing is unable to detect that the arm is at maximum (or minimum) extension. The only limiting is current limiting of the motor. Bit crap but there you are. Which suggests you're not using the correct sized fuse?

PS: Did you realise they aren't waterproof? Many peeps have made canvas covers for them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, the fuse wasnt the right size. It was whatever was in the panel. Still its a bit crap that the thing operates in this way. If the fuse didnt blow then the thing would keep on hammering itself.

Yes, I read a lot about the poor waterproofing. Need to fix up some way of covering it. No doubt plastic bags are the first line of defence.
 
My old Nautech Autohelm 1000, the original I think, is quite happy to go fully in or out. It is obviously designed to cater for that.

The correct fuse in the supply to an ST1000 is 12 amps.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Anyway 1 question and 1 rant :

1) Anyone any experience of setting up these settings? Do you think my diagnosis is likely to be right?

2) What the hell were Raymarine thinking when they designed this thing to bash itself to death? The blurb claims this thing has all kinds of intelligence built in so surely someone could have worked out a way to implement some SW end stops to protect itself from itself.

[/ QUOTE ]

It does sound like you need to reduce the rudder gain - the procedure is in the handbook, and it's easy enough to do if you've got clear, flat water and 10 minutes to spare. Even when it's adjusted, the thing will probably still hit its end stops from time to time - it's the way it's been designed, but they don't take kindly to doing it for a long time. The only safeguard is that if it can't achieve the course it wants to after a few seconds, it will turn the drive off and start bleeping. I don't think the 'cruising speed' is relevant here - AFAIK this is used to calculate the correction to be applied when steering to a waypoint. It sounds like you had the wrong fuse.

You can't adjust the tacking angle on the ST1000+/ST2000+, nor its travel.

Andy
 
I too have an ST1000+ (my 2nd). The first one worked fine for a few sails then started emitting a screeching noise at the extremities when using auto tack. The supplier replaced the unit with a new one. This has worked fine so far. I was told that when the unit reaches its extent of travel, it is quite normal for it to "rumble" a bit until it settles onto the new heading. This must be some sort of clutch assembly. The replacement unit also suffered from water ingress (rain) with the window misting and difficult to clear. Eventually the readings started going haywire and on subsequent powerups displayed 800 instead of 1000. Raymarine's web site gave instructions on how to cure this. I use an old 33 rpm record sleeve, the clear plastic type, cut and taped to shape. So far so good. Hope this helps.
 
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