Raymarine Auto Pilot, problem/fix

[Mighty Bite]

I have a Raymarine Auto Pilot (S1) on my 2004 CD Cruiser along with the C80 super system. There has been a problem with the display showing 3rd Byte going in a variety of directions other than the correct one. This problem seems to have gotten progressively worse with time. It got aggravating enough that I pulled the power to the auto pilot for this past fishing season.

I had talked with Raymarines tech folks several times. Tried re-calibrating the unit. It initially went into the deviation mode and appeared to be OK. Promptly lost it again. Tried re-calibrating numerous times after that and it would not go into the deviation mode at all. Thats when I pulled the power.

I talked to Raymarine again and they said it sounded like the course computer was fried and to send it in. I sent it in August 23rd,05 and got a voice mail call-back this morning. This is the gist of it if anyone else is experiencing a similar problem.

The auto pilot was not reading the compass correctly. There was a problem with a component on the circuit board which they corrected. They reset the unit to factory settings, re-entered all of the dealer caibration and pronounced it ready to accept Sea Tria Calibration which should work fine and should come in at a low number, under 10.

I still had some questions, so called the tech back and this was the explanation. Raymarine made a mistake in the make-up of the circuit boards on the S1 Auto Pilots that they did not catch in the earlier manufacture. These boards would initially work and appear to be ok, but with use, and not necessarily much use, the auto pilot would lose the ability to read the fluxgate compass. In addition the deviation was higher than it should have been.

The fix for these problem auto pilots is for Raymarine to correct the circuit board, which will allow the the unit to read the fluxgate compass correctly and will minimize the degree of deviation when doing the Sea
Trial Calibration.

Raymarine did make a quick turnaround on my unit as it is currently in route back to me in less than 10 days from when I put it in the mail..

The bummer is that I won't be able to put 3rd Byte back in the water until next spring, probably May.

[Otter-BelleHavenMarina]

Thank you! I've been having problems with mine. Will send it in.

[Island Ranger]

I had trouble with my Raymarine Autopilot almost from day 1. Actually it was within 60 days - but it was intermittent. I kept getting SeaTalk (STLK) errors between the autopilot and the C-80, but every time I tried to get it fixed, it started working. That doesn't include all the hassles with tracking - I'm pretty sure it kept losing its self learning auto correction (& SeaTrail Cal changed to "fail"). But everything else worked OK, and I didn't want to give up the boat in the middle of the season (and yes, the season is all year long!)

Last month the rudder reference failed, also intermittently, but for long enough so I finally took Two Lucky Fish back to Les at EQ. He replaced the reference - and worked fine in the parking lot. But I got the STLK error again when I launched at home. So I replaced both the course computer and the flux compass - and it has been working fine ever since!

Les has learned a ton about the autopilot failure modes, and really helped me get back up and running. From what he told me, there have been problems with the built in gryo (on the course computer), and some rudder reference failures (like mine).

Sure is nice to have my autopilot back!

Mac

[Byrdman]

Hummm... and now I have more to look at on mine... I need to take a look at some of this... Just the other day I noticed a lot of "off course" and had to hit standby...auto...and adjust again... Thanks... Will print this off. Get out all the books.. and spend a day really paying attention to what is saying what to which piece... I have often thought that I was just expecting simply too tight of turns...or too close together points... Humm.