autopilot

[krc]

Our family recently purchased a 2006 c-dory with twin honda 90s. Been working on some issues (replaced water pump and raised it so not sitting in water in bulkhead) and will post another day with some questions on battery arrangement/VSR stuff/charging. Anyway, during the sea trial the autopilot, a TR-1 gladiator, did not seem to work. And, after purchase, the deck light would not come on at all when pressed. I finally traced this down to a bad blade fuse (30A - one of the legs was corroded off, the fuse itself was fine) near the starboard battery. I am going to have to replace the holder as well because it was too corroded to remove one of the blades that was stuck. But, just to test, I bypassed the fuse and now I have the autopilot responding to left/right commands from the controller. The tr-1 gladiator is not much for UI and pretty archaic. The pump is also quite loud as well.

So, the real question is it worth trying to get waypoint navigation with a NMEA0183 output from a raymarine e7D chartplotter/GPS? TR-1 documentation seems to suggest it could work, but in the details it is pretty clear it can get confused unless it sees only certain waypoint sentences.

Is it even worth keeping around or should I go with a EV-150 that "should" integrate with my e7d. At some point, I would like to add radar as well (came from a boat that had one and I miss it).

Thoughts appreciated.

[jkidd]

I would expect 10 year old electronics to be more than obsolete. You need to choose which brand you like and buy their system. Myself I am running Garmin where the TR1 autopilot ended up. I can't hear it run. Ok if I open the cabinet door and stick my head in there I can. It is the best autopilot I have owned very accurate. I have all new electronics on the boat this year with the exception of the autopilot. Can't wait to go out and test it out. I like that I don't have to carry the manuals around with me. But they are built in to the new MFD's.

[journey on]

Journey On uses a 12 year old autopilot, new when we got the boat. As long as it steers the boat, it's staying. Raymarine Model something. Pump is noisy, but you can tell it's working. Can feed it waypoints in NMEA 183 but don't because I want to make sure that everything is going well at the waypoint.

So my recommendation is to keep what you have until you really have to fix it. New ones may be better but there's a lot of work to change.

Boris

[starcrafttom]

KRC. The tr1 is one of the best Autos for fishing on the market. It does several things that other auto pilots do not do. Work in reverse being the big one. Very important if you are fishing rivers. It is not how ever that great for long distance. These are not the same units that Garmin is putting out. Does anyone here that has a new Garmin know if it will troll backwards?

So there is not a best auto pilot on the market, There is how every the best for your needs. So what are your needs? Navigation? fishing? What type of fishing? If you are bottom fishing and want to hold in one spot against a current or a wind then the TR1 is your baby. If you want to troll open water and follow depth contours then a simrad is your baby. If you just want to follow courses from one anchorage to another and want the AP to pick your course based on deep restriction ( hull depth plus safety) then Garmin or raymarine or simrad is going to do well. So what is your need.

[smckean (Tosca)]

FWIW.....

When I first got my boat, I instantly feel in love with the auto pilot (still do); I started fooling around with waypoints, and crafting tracks made of multiple waypoints, and such. But as time has passed, I note that 90% of the time I simply push the button so that the auto pilot will maintain my current bearing while I do other things. I change the bearing 70% of the time with the 1/10 degree buttons (e.g., 3 long button pushes to alter course 30 degrees), and just keep on cruising.

So I guess what I am saying is: as long of your auto pilot can hold an arbitrary course with a push of a button or two, you're all set most of the time. Don't fix what ain't broke .

P.S. I don't use it fishing YET.......trolling could/will change my entire outlook most likely!

[jkidd]

Yes mine has a setting for reverse. Might not ever get to try it out. No rivers here big enough to boat on. Exception would be the Colorado and a piece of the Green.

[krc]

Thanks all.
Once I get the fuse holder and water proof the connections I will give it a shot on the water. Seems to follow commands at the dock, so as long as it holds a course that is probably good enough for this old of a unit. If I can easily figure out the gps / waypoint stuff - bonus!

[hardee]

I agree with smckean (Tosca), that at least 90% of the time I use the Autopilot it is push the button when the boat is aimed in the direction I want to go. (RayMarine ??100) with the tiny steering wheel. I love it, and have done trips from the marina in Sequim to the marina at Friday Harbor without ever touching my BIG steering wheel (just for kicks.... and it is a combo of steering with twins and forward reverse on the throttles, and the tiny steering wheel on the AP.) On this one no buttons for the 1/10 degree turns.

About 10% of the time I will use the go to waypoint function.

Harvey
SleepyC

[ken35216]

I absolutely love the autopilot on my boat. LOVE IT!

[thataway]

I have been using auto pilots since 1962. Almost all of my sailboats and trawlers had one. But, the way we use the C Dory (mostly rivers and ICW), where there is considerable traffic, I don't miss it.

Although an autopilot relieves you of steering the boat, it does not relieve you of watch. (I have seen plenty of boaters who might disagree with that statement, since there was no one visible above deck....comes to mind the boat which hit the ferry about year ago in Puget sound area.)

Bottom line: use the auto pilot and see how it holds a course. If it does that, then use it for a season before buying a new one.

When you go to add radar, a 7" screen is small, for combo radar, chart plotter and sonar (yes I understand you can overlay the radar on the chart-=but I prefer to have a prime radar image to avoid concussions...You may wish to add a larger second display.

As for the electrical issues--if there is that bad corrosion on the fuse, there are probably going to be other corrosion issues. You need to go thru the entire electrical system. It would be unusual for the C Dory to have the main power supply to the console thru a single 30 amp fuse. That circuit was probably added later. The standard was a 40 amp breaker on the main line to the console.

Third issue--why was the fresh water (?) pump sitting in water? That is not "normal" in the 25. You need to be sure that the bilge is dry, or if water is getting, that the bilge pumps are handling it. Even the raw water wash down pump should not be sitting in water....If any pump was screwed into the floor, this is a potential area for water intrusion into the boat's core, and needs to be addressed.

[SEA3PO]

I have a Raymarine Auto Pilot on my boat...and when I installed my new Raymarine radar -chart plotter and display... the auto pilot would not work...I found that the auto pilot was analog and the new stuff was digital...Raymarine said I needed a converter but I am tired of Raymarine " everything is separate " and real expensive ...( $50 for a simple 12"connector cord) so I just run it as a stand alone unit..

Joel
SEA3PO

[krc]

Was able to get out today. Cruised up from pittsburg to rio vista, had lunch, etc...
I put in the autopilot's new inline fuse (also replacing the fuseholder), crimped, heated up, and applied the black goo. Yeah - I am not sure why it was fed direct from the battery, but maybe that is a warranty requirement at the time. The autopilot worked as hoped. I could set a heading, deviate with the arrow keys, then say resume heading and it would recover nicely. Seems to be fairly responsive.

Of course, since I touched the boat today, more things are popping up.
1) tell-tale on starboard motor is weak. No engine shutdown due to overheat, etc.. I will take off and hope I can see that the tube is blocked and not something more complicated. I do flush (as recommended by previous owner w/ salt way through muffs, but I wonder if I should use the flush port instead or as well. BF90A honda is the motor, carb, which I can now start fairly easily once I learned that a lot of throttle is needed and choke it out until warm.
2) Horn is not sounding. I am pretty sure we tested this during the survey and it worked fine. I guess I will need to find out where the horn is located and see if I am getting voltage there and then back track if not (as I did for the autopilot). Where is the horn located on a c25 anyway? I don't think I noticed...
3) The starboard hatch in the cockpit area needs to be replaced. As surveyor noted, probably water was sitting there and damaged the hatch (it squishes when you walk on it). I think this is due to the scupper draining on the starboard siding being less that adequate. Not sure why, but the port side scupper drains fairly well - BUT the boat seems to list slightly to starboard. Previous owner did not that he would always rotate the twin engines so that when up their weight was moved port as much as possible, but still probably not enough. Any source on a hatch?

The water pump seems to be located on the port side just forward of the battery compartment. The bilge pump is about 1-2 feet away but doesn't activate until water gets 2-3" in there, and won't get all of it out. And, yes, it seemed odd that it was resting on the floor, though it was not screwed into the floor but into some sort of bulkhead that seems to be after market that holds the battery tray area in place. So, I just moved it up a couple of inches and screwed into place. There was enough flex in the line, and since I had to replace the pump anyway I could wire it to give me flex there as well.

And, yeah, I think there are a few gremlins I am going to have to dig through on this boat electrically. The twins each have their own battery and a house battery. There is BEP console that has two VSRs and then switches for starboard/port start batteries, and an emergency parallel, and on/off for house. The way I read it the charge will be able to charge through the starter batteries and charge house as well. I need to get in an ohm it all out to see what is where, and where exactly the charger is plugging into on this system. And, then I need to move everything "up" as it ironically sits in the battery tray but just low enough that any liquid in the tray will probably damage/corrode the bep array as well as the ground blocks.

I will send pictures along when I get to that part.

And to those who commented on Raymarine - thanks. I struggles as well to go with a seemingly proprietary connector system seatalk/raynet. I may indeed see if there is a cheaper second viewer that can do radar overlay on a chart. Maybe openCPN, etc...

[My IRA]

Seatalk and NMEA2000 are identical except for an additional power wire. You can buy, cut and splice an NMEA connector wire to your seatalk (issolate the extra power wire) and leave the female seatalk connector on to plug into your Raymarine MFD. It works fine and the cost is less than $10 plus the wire color code is the same from Seatalk to NMEA.

FYI, IMHO Raymarine makes the finest autopilot on the market ( for $ spent), the EV150 would be a fine fit for any CD.

[starcrafttom]

first thing I do on a weak water tell is run a length of heavy mono up it about two ft. Say 40 to 50 lbs test. You want stiff line. Weeds and debris get in there not to mention sand and bugs. do it while its running so it flushes out.

[alainP]

i have been looking at the EV-150, seems like a perfect fit for the 25 with the ACCU 200 and type 1 pump in the kit, anyone installed one of these yet? Right now I only have the "Mary Pilot" and she is getting tired of it...