New Autopilot from Yacht Devices!

[s/v Jedi]

Have you seen this yet?

https://www.yachtd.com/products/autopilot.html

Looks great, unfortunately the output isn’t powerful enough for our boat but this is a very promising development. They use Raymarine, B&G displays etc. as well as all standard nmea2000 sensors.

[rslifkin]

This is pretty interesting looking. It looks like it takes both 12 and 24v input, but gives a fixed limit of 10A continuous, 16A peak for the drive output. So it sounds like running it at 24v with a 24v autopilot drive would allow use of a more powerful drive (vs 12v). At 12v it's not quite powerful enough for my boat either, but at 24v it would be just fine.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

This is pretty interesting looking. It looks like it takes both 12 and 24v input, but gives a fixed limit of 10A continuous, 16A peak for the drive output. So it sounds like running it at 24v with a 24v autopilot drive would allow use of a more powerful drive (vs 12v). At 12v it's not quite powerful enough for my boat either, but at 24v it would be just fine.

I’m already thinking it ain’t hard to add a power stage to the output… but I think they will come with a more powerful unit later…

[markxengineerin]

That's great to see- I LOVE my yachtdevices wifi router, it's incredible what that thing can do for the $. I imagine this autopilot will be the same extremely good value.

That being said, a few criticisms:
-user manual for the router assumes non-beginner level knowledge to get most features working, I hope they'll get some feedback from beginners.
-Customer service does not respond to emails if they don't like the questions
-One important and sometimes lacking feature of any autopilot is the durability (water resistance) of the control panel mounted at the helm. Hopefully they will come up with a good solution for that.

[tanglewood]

What are you guys using for steering actuators? Reversing pumps? What's the current requirements?

[bergius]

Looks quite interesting, and would likely be steerable from both Signal K and Orca CoPilot out of the box.

It seems to require a rudder angle sensor, which is quite difficult to fit into our transom hung rudder. One solution would be to use the PCnautic tiller arm that has a sensor built in:
https://pcnautic.com/en/product/pcna...e-tiller-drive

Also interesting that they only talk about needing a compass on the N2K bus. No mention whether it’d also use other gyro features like heel.

[Matt Johnson]

At $349, that's a great option for a backup system on a cruising boat. But I wish it had an internal heading sensor for redundancy.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by tanglewood

What are you guys using for steering actuators? Reversing pumps? What's the current requirements?

No autopilot installed on my boat yet, but it would be a hydraulic reversing pump. Existing steering is Hynautic with a single manual helm pump. If the system can handle a hard-over time of 8.25 seconds it would be a 1.6 cu in/sec pump. If that's too fast (with a 90* rudder swing from stop to stop), I'd either have to accept a 13.2 second hard-over time with a 1.0 cu in/sec pump, or use a variable output pump.

Looking at the Octopus gear pumps it looks like the worst case draw would be about 18 amps. So it's not terribly far off, but not quite there either.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by tanglewood

What are you guys using for steering actuators? Reversing pumps? What's the current requirements?

We have hydraulics from Hynautic which is a reversible motor driving a pump with a belt. We have two of those but can steer with only one enabled soI’ll probably be measuring current to see what we can get away with. I now have a 30A capable AP from B&G.

Originally Posted by bergius

Looks quite interesting, and would likely be steerable from both Signal K and Orca CoPilot out of the box.

It seems to require a rudder angle sensor, which is quite difficult to fit into our transom hung rudder. One solution would be to use the PCnautic tiller arm that has a sensor built in:
https://pcnautic.com/en/product/pcna...e-tiller-drive

Also interesting that they only talk about needing a compass on the N2K bus. No mention whether it’d also use other gyro features like heel.

An nmea2000 rudder angle sensor. A B&G RF25N is exactly that, you only need to mechanically couple it to the rudder.

Nmea2000 heading sensors that are rated for AP use all have 3D accelerometers internally that compensate heading output. Support for heel would be a simple software update. I would like to see open source though.

Originally Posted by Matt Johnson

At $349, that's a great option for a backup system on a cruising boat. But I wish it had an internal heading sensor for redundancy. Attachment 282446

No, you really don’t want that. Heading sensors for AP aren’t like the simple sensors you find in everything and there are only a few who manufacture these.

I recommend a traditional one like from Maretron or Airmar and then when you want a backup, a new satellite based one like from Furuno which have been coming down in price. I have both a Maretron and an Airmar as I bought the spare before the satellite based units were in reach for sailboats.

The heading sensor will cost more than the AP.

[Matt Johnson]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

No, you really don’t want that. Heading sensors for AP aren’t like the simple sensors you find in everything and there are only a few who manufacture these.



I recommend a traditional one like from Maretron or Airmar and then when you want a backup, a new satellite based one like from Furuno which have been coming down in price. I have both a Maretron and an Airmar as I bought the spare before the satellite based units were in reach for sailboats.



The heading sensor will cost more than the AP.

We've always had a satellite heading sensor (Hemisphere who makes them for most manufacturers) for our autopilot/radar. But for a backup, an internal heading sensor would be more than adequate for my use. Pelagic, CPT and a few other all-in-one autopilots use compass modules typically used on cell phones with good success.

We've had a CPT as a backup before, and that steered just fine.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Matt Johnson

We've always had a satellite heading sensor (Hemisphere who makes them for most manufacturers) for our autopilot/radar. But for a backup, an internal heading sensor would be more than adequate for my use. Pelagic, CPT and a few other all-in-one autopilots use compass modules typically used on cell phones with good success.

We've had a CPT as a backup before, and that steered just fine.

But none of that is nmea2000 right? Also, it won’t work in heavy weather conditions because these don’t have a rate gyro function, or do they? I believe my iPhone has?

Anyway, I know someone who tried and it didn’t work, it didn’t even give enough updates per second.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by ManekiNeko

Hi, guys! YDAP-04 manufacturer here, feel free to ask for more help if needed!

First of all, thank you all for your interest in our Autopilot, good questions and healthy discussion here, as always.

Some of my comments:

Sorry that our first unit power stage is so puny, but we wanted to fit into our "large size box". More powerful unit is already at R&D stage, will have absolutely new "XL" case size. Can't tell when it will be finished, though.

Of course, you need to have a basic NMEA 2000 / NMEA 0183 expertise to fully utilize advanced YDNR-02 Router capabilities. Ideally, you need a Standard to refer to. But basic functions — easy, you can just click here and there in device WEB-GUI and you're done.

Of course, you can contact us if you do not understand something.

Speaking of: "Customer service does not respond to emails if they don't like the questions" — I do not confirm this, are you sure you have used main manufacturer's site feedback form at https://www.yachtd.com/support/ ?
Maybe our reply went to SPAM ? Anyway as we support over email, sometimes emails can be lost. If you have not get a reply, just drop another email or send me a PM.

As for Control Panel, our solution is that you make a panel and make it as watertight (and beautiful; and functional) as you need.
Third-party Raymarine Pilot Head (e.g. P70 variants) is also an option.

No, we just use ROT directly from Heading/Gyro solution which is more valuable piece of data here.

s/v Jedi was absolutely right stating that:

We definitely recommend sensors that output ROT.

Yes... our cheap compass is not ready. But I got a prototype, maybe in the future...

Negative. Putting magnetic sensor unto high-power electric box where it will be affected by a strong magneitc fields and EMI due to high currents is a bad idea. Magnetic compass needs to be carefully placed on a vessel, far away from any magnetic influence.

Also both Magnetc/GNSS Compass (and Gyro) needs to be as close to vessel center of rotation as possible, which might not be ideal spot for YDAP-04 placement (it needs close proximity to high-power DC buses and Drive wiring).
Take Raymarine Evolution AP series for example, they have EV sensor core and Computer+Drive as a separate units exactly for that reason!

Feel free to comment, ask for more help, send PM/email if needed.

Great to see you here on the forum! What is your name and position with Yacht Devices?

I will buy the high power version for sure.

Now that you talk about products in the pipeline… I have this request: a device with nmea2000 and Ethernet with all the functionality of your Ethernet gateway but more powerful for lots of UDP traffic plus the ability to add user-end programming like the bridge does

[SailingHarmonie]

For simple on-off control of a hydraulic system, the output of the AP could drive a solid state relay, and feed the drive whatever power it wanted. This worked well for me.

[George_SD]

Interesting, but requires building and testing of your own. I simply prefer an all-in-one package from a trusted manufacturer that comes with all pieces and simple install/config.

I know there are many who like to tinker and build their own system, so it's going to be great for them.

Competition is good

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by George_SD

Interesting, but requires building and testing of your own. I simply prefer an all-in-one package from a trusted manufacturer that comes with all pieces and simple install/config.

I know there are many who like to tinker and build their own system, so it's going to be great for them.

Competition is good

So why not buy the drive from B&G or Raymarine and hook this AP up to that? That’s not tinkering. The unit has inputs for switches to make your own panel but instead of that you can use the web interface or apparently you can use a Raymarine P70 controller.

B&G makes nifty little autopilot keypads and a wireless remote that all connect to nmea2000 and only need a sniffer to find the PGN’s they send which Yacht Devices can then implement

Most boats will already have their AP drive unit so they only need this module to use it. That’s not bad, same as for other options.