TP 20 help

billyfish

billyfish

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I know this has been discussed at some length before but I inherited a TP20 tillerpilot, for the life of me I cant get it to steer a coarse at all. I couldn't get into settings to change the gain or seastate so took it apart to find the buttons had been pushed so hard the tack button wasn't working..it is now. But still it refuses to steer a coarse. It looks nearly new and the pushrod goes in and out nicely manually. Is there a way to do a factory reset ? As all looks ok .
 
There's no mention of a reset in the service manual.

In the user manual, there's mention of the unit going into standby on its own when voltage is too low.
 
Does it just refuse to do anything when it's switched on, or is doing something other than steer the course? If the latter then @earlybird's suggestion is a good one.

I'm more interested in the former. How did you repair the pcb mount microswitch, and did you test all of them with a circuit tester?
 
It works .ie the rod goes in and out on standby but in auto just sits there...the buttons were not pushing the contacts just tighten up the screws holding that plate in place
 
billyfish said:
It works .ie the rod goes in and out on standby but in auto just sits there...the buttons were not pushing the contacts just tighten up the screws holding that plate in place
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I can't see how those screws would have come loose - d'you think someone else has had it open?

I'm wondering if a jammed switch would stop it doing anything. I've got a TP30 and might be able to test that tomorrow sometime.
 
billyfish said:
I dont know . It's like the threads were stripped. Anyway it beeps now and didn't before.
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I thought you might say that. I reckon someone's been in there before you. Those plastic pillar threads are easy to strip, but would be very hard to damage by button pushing.

If that's the case, then why? Assuming then that it was the button board cover screws we're talking about then they obviously also suspected that they were the problem (and didn't fix it).

The question then is what you did to make it beep? I suppose that the rubber button covers may not have reached down far enough to touch the switches? Now they do.

Do all the buttons beep?
 
zulloboy said:
Fluxgate compass could be dodgy
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Possibly, and I fear for it if the thread stripper opened that cover because the wires are as thin as hairs and so easy to damage.

At this stage I think Simrad is its next waypoint in order to have the original fault fixed - and any that the previous owner may have caused.
 
An outfit in Poole offers "fixed price" tillerpilor repairs for £79.95, but I suspect that spare bits might be extra.
Search Ebay for Simrad TP20 Tillerpilot repair. Never used them myself.
 
You could try searching online for a fluxgate compass. They occasionally can be found. Very easy to replace, so long as you are very careful with those hair-like little wires, and the sometime-hard-to-remove-without-a-jerk connector.
 
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