Mighty Bite
New member
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.
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.