Autopilot - under deck Raymarine - Freeport

Another Freeport owners installation of the Raymarine under deck autopilot.
He does mention a custom arm was made.:

"Used a Raymarine S3G brain with a TypeII (short) linear drive and a ST6000 head.
The two major complexities were the rudder angle indicator transducer and repositioning the rudder stops to limit the rudder movement to 35 degrees.

The quadrant has two 3/8ths holes predrilled at the 12,3,6, and 9 o'clock positions. I used the existing holes. The only new hole I drilled was for the drive pin (1/2"). I reinforced the pin mounting with two stainless plates sandwiching the quadrant.
The autopilot mechanical drive needs stops so that the ram doesn't over extend itself. I think I am losing around 8 degress of rudder angle on both sides of straight. Not that big of a deal.

I'm having our original under deck Sharp autopilot replaced with a Raymarine
X-10 Smartpilot system with linear drive mounted under the deck. The custom SS
tiller arm was installed today and the rest will be completed next week. The
person I have doing the install didn't think I'd be happy with the smaller unit
while under sail with seas on the quarter (which is the prevailing direction
returning from the Channel Islands). I'll let you know how it works after I
test it next weekend.
We're finally finishing the install the Raymarine X-10 with linear drive and need to re-position the rudder stops. The current stops are set to over 70 degrees which is probably excessive. I've heard that after 33 degrees the steering effectiveness drops exponentially. My installer says that Raymarine recommends 25 degrees and that the Type I linear drive unit can't handle more than 33 degrees (the ABYC standard)... so I'll probably re-set the boats to around 30 degrees.

Not our boat

Not our boat

Not our boat

Not our boat

Not our boat

I was limited to about 30 degrees due to the travel of the linear drive ram. I used the existing steering quadrant so that put the pin (on the outboard end of the linear drive ram) at the recommended 10 inches away from the center of the rudder post.
And yes, my steering is much more limited than I would like. Its just something that I have to account for when operating the boat.
Its really important that the linear drive ram doesn't hyperextend itself. I put my stops at the point to just limit this.
Aside from the limited steering, we love the autopilot. I tested it out under lots of different conditions and it has only kicked out once on a large quartering sea with 20 knots of wind (and probably not a very balanced helm)."







"

1 comment:

  1. it was a wonderful chance to visit this kind of site and I am happy to know. thank you so much for giving us a chance to have this opportunity.. Under deck ideas

    ReplyDelete