Help with autopilot

[bstreep]

We've replaced an older Raytheon unit on our boat. Kept the ram, I have no idea the brand, but it's a beast. It DID give us a bit of trouble in a seal replacement, we think we've finally gotten solved. All of our instruments are Raymarine. So, we went with a Raymarine pilot. It integrates perfectly, and as it's the same manufacturer, it works way better than a stand alone unit. Interfaces with chart and wind instruments. We looked at ram replacements. My thought is Octopus, if this unit fails.

But, I'm open to ANY recommendations that will interface with our Raymarine.

[Russian007]

CPT makes a simple, dumb, durable and easy to install wheel gear AP. Great service. Won't integrate with anything. it's also a quiet AP.

[Near2KR]

Having used a Garmin Reactor along with a 942xs plotter and garmin radar from New England south to Marathon and halfway back again. I can say I dislike it immensely. It works fine if you want to just pick a heading and stay on it until the next turn, anything more complex is a lesson in frustration. Wish we had a CPT

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Near2KR

Having used a Garmin Reactor along with a 942xs plotter and garmin radar from New England south to Marathon and halfway back again. I can say I dislike it immensely. It works fine if you want to just pick a heading and stay on it until the next turn, anything more complex is a lesson in frustration. Wish we had a CPT

Since my experience with APs comes from the olden days when all they could do is hold a compass course I could live with that. What's more important to me is how well the AP holds the course, whether it's constantly hunting, zig zagging, how well it works downwind with a big following sea.

So how well did the Garmin do in those tasks?

[Near2KR]

Originally Posted by skipmac

Since my experience with APs comes from the olden days when all they could do is hold a compass course I could live with that. What's more important to me is how well the AP holds the course, whether it's constantly hunting, zig zagging, how well it works downwind with a big following sea.

So how well did the Garmin do in those tasks?

I’ll admit part of the frustration is the documentation isn’t that good, leaving us to wonder if we have it set up properly. So it’s failings could be due to ignorance. In “normal” sailing conditions it is fine reacts as expected and does a fine job. In any following sea it seems to over correct or start correcting the wrong direction for a moment. We found it unusable in those conditions. We’ve nicknamed him “ Crazy Ivan”

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Near2KR

I’ll admit part of the frustration is the documentation isn’t that good, leaving us to wonder if we have it set up properly. So it’s failings could be due to ignorance. In “normal” sailing conditions it is fine reacts as expected and does a fine job. In any following sea it seems to over correct or start correcting the wrong direction for a moment. We found it unusable in those conditions. We’ve nicknamed him “ Crazy Ivan”

Crazy Ivan. I love it.

Interesting you find the AP difficult to use. I've had a couple of Garmin GPSs and find them (mostly) intuitive and rarely use the manual.

When I researched a new AP I considered the Garmin but rejected it mainly due to the fact that it was a new product and my philosophy in that regard is to NEVER buy version 1.0 of anything. However a friend bought one and liked it and someone later mentioned that Garmin was big in APs for small planes so should certainly be able to make a good boat AP.

At the end of the day I'm very happy with my Simrad. It has so far done all I asked of it and have no serious complaints.

[Near2KR]

We’ve been happy with the Garmin chart plotter , radar and wind instruments. We can’t seem to get the ap heading to match the compass and plotter heading. We done the calibration process a couple of times but evidently there is another one for the compass. We’ll keep working on it

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Near2KR

We’ve been happy with the Garmin chart plotter , radar and wind instruments. We can’t seem to get the ap heading to match the compass and plotter heading. We done the calibration process a couple of times but evidently there is another one for the compass. We’ll keep working on it

I've to the Garmin plotter (upgraded from a 740 to a 920) and radar and very happy with both. Which radar did you go with? I had a hard time deciding between the HD or Fantom. Went with the Fantom mainly due to lower power draw and so far no complaints.

Just added wind instruments and went with B&G. They had good reviews and Defender had a sale that gave me two displays free. Can show the wind data on the Garmin and the two displays. So far N2K is very impressive. All the toys no matter what brand seem to talk to each other.