Raymarine EV 100 auto pilot

H

Hunkydory

New member
I installed a Raymarine S1000 on the Hunkydory in 2005 & overall it's worked very well for our cruising, but last year at Lake Powell it quit working with indications the pump was the problem. I have never liked the the excessive noise this pump made especially at displacement speed cruising, so instead of purchasing a original Raymarine pump went in search of a more quite but effective pump. This led me to purchase a Hypro PR06 directly from the factory in the UK last January. I had a very difficult time getting the air bled out & later have found it to be a common problem by many who have installed this pump, which is the one sold with the Raymarine ev 100 auto pilot now. I have succeeded in getting the air out, but have never been able to get a auto learn accomplished with it on the S1000 or have it hold a course for anytime over a few minutes on plane in any sea conditions or under choppy conditions at displacement speed no matter the setting I tried & they were many over the course of our just finished month long cruise in the San Juan's & Gulf Islands. I was told by the rep at Hypro the pump should work great with the S1000 though I never consulted Raymarine, which no doubt was a mistake. Either the S1000 & this pump are not suitable or I have more than a worn out pump wrong with the S1000, so I'm now looking at alternative auto pilots & being as I already have the pump for the ev 100 it seemed to be the best option. Now I'm finding the deals for a complete kit are much cheaper than the parts ordered separate, excluding the pump by approximate $1275 vs $1750, which makes the previous purchase of the pump alone a very negative benefit. Also, I use a Garmin 545 GPS signal for the S1000 & it's NMEA 0183 signal needs to be converted to NMEA 2000 to have a chance of working. I say chance because though I've read a converter like this linked here http://www.blueheronmarine.com/Actisens ... teway-7985 should work, I've been unable to verify it from anyone who has actually done it & one source saying he couldn't make it work with a Garmin 545. This has lead me to consider the Garmin GPH10 auto pilot that I know will except NMEA 0183, but it is more expensive & I would have to remove again the present pump.

So, does anyone know for sure if the converted NMEA 0183 will be accepted by the ev 100 or have other thoughts that might help my decision making on new auto pilot purchase. I'm leaning toward a kit purchase of the Raymarine ev 100 & signal converter leaving me with a spare pump, but the Garmin GHP 10 with its shadow drive, wireless remote availability & readily accepting the NMEA 0183 is very attractive except for loss of present pump & much higher price.

Jay
 
Jay,

I started a thread called AUTOPILOT since I know zip about them. I've been sitting back and watching the responses for now. Your experience is exactly the kind of useful info I need. I appreciate your post, though I'm sorry your having problems. I'll be interested in how things progress for you. Thanks.
 
James

It's good to see my post was helpful to you & I would have posted it on your thread, but didn't want to hijack it with my dilemma.

Jay
 
I can't provide any info here, but I will be reading this (and Molly Brown's) thread with interest as I would like to fit a new autopilot (this will be concurrent with a steering upgrade as I currently have cable steering and the compatible Raymarine Sportpilot - state-of-the-art 2002!).

I, too, am sorry you are having the issue and finding inconclusive info so far (frustrating!). Glad you posted about it here though. Maybe we can all learn and your autopilot get fixed up too.
 
I have to wonder and ask why you thought it was the pump that needed replaced and not the control unit of the s1000? many of the s1000 and the st6001 had mother board ( not sure that is the right term) problems. I had the same problem you describe and fought it for way to long before calling raymarine. I sent in the unit and it was back to me free of charge in under a week. No more problems and it was still working a two years?? later when I sold the boat.

Second question? what are you going to do with the s1000 unit??? I need a auto pilot for the 27.
 
Sunshine, I had one of those era Sportspilots before the S1000 & found it to be worth less than no auto pilot at all, so can fully appreciate your desire to upgrade & information needed do so for best outcome.

Tom, Last year was my 9th season with the S1000 auto pilot & it had worked well all these years until last fall at Lake Powell when on a point & set course the motor would not activate to hold the course after a few minutes of operation unless I helped it with the manual wheel. It would only take a nudge on the wheel to start the pump working again. No alarms or any other indication of improper function from the brain or S100. Of course this doesn't mean for sure it isn't a problem with the S100 or the controller, but being as I've had many hours of hard use on the pump & it was to me the most likely culprit & I would prefer a more quiet pump anyway decided to replace it first.

Now after seeing how much additional cost it is to change to either a Garmin GHP 10 or the Raymarine ev 100, I've decided to send in both the brain controller & S100 for check out & repair if needed. Before doing this I'm presently trying to find out if the Hy-Pro pump, I purchased is indeed compatible with the S1000. Raymarine has been a real pain to get in direct contact with a tech rep. Today it's been impossible, so I'm in the process of joining their technical forum for answers on compatibility.

The S100 wireless unit can be set up for contact with the ev100, but other than that if I decide to give up on the S1000, it's yours.

Jay
 
Hunkydory/Jay,

I've had really good service through the Raymarine repair service. I've sent the computer in, an anemometer, etc. etc. They've repaired it at a nominal cost and the repaired items have worked as good as new. It seems to me that they don't really repair the component, just replace the insides. Of course, with all the integrated circuits, that must be the cheapest. Worked well with me at a very nominal cost.

Here's the Raymarine Servicepage. Toll free number (if that means anything anymore,) in and out of service and customer support which has gotten better over the years.

Boris
 
Boris,

It's good to hear of your good repair experiences with Raymarine. The telephone number you gave is the one I've been trying to get through to a rep for two days. Today I left a message & also posted on the Raymarine forum. I'm waiting now for feedback. I will be sending in the S1000 control brain & S100 wireless controller for check out & repair if confirmed the new pump is compatible.

Jay
 
I received a call back from Raymarine tech & they say the Hy-Pro PR 0612 pump is not compatible with S1000 unit, though I still don't know exactly why, being as they have not tried it & couldn't give details. They did suggest, I send it in along with the S1000 & S100 components. They will check out the Raymarine ones & repair if needed. Plus they said, there was a fair chance of them exchanging my new pump for a Raymarine specific one at no cost to me as the pump I have now is a more expensive & heavier duty pump. Before purchasing this pump from Hy-Pro, I did a lot of internet searches with indication from them and Hy-Pro direct, that it was compatible. Now I don't really know what to believe, but if I can get the S1000 back up & running with minimal more cost will be happy to have it working again. One thing for sure is I'm getting a lot better at pump changing & bleeding then I ever wanted to be.

Jay
 
Jay, Good luck with the pump replace. As mine was functioning, that was one of the components that was not replaced. I am liking the Evo-1 for now. Seems like it is doing the trick.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
Raymarine really came through. I received a call from them today with results of their having checked out the S1000 brain controll & S100 wireless control with both checking out good. They also exchanged the Hy-Pro PR0612 pump, I had bought from that factory, straight across for an original Raymarine standard pump for the S1000. All this including return shipping with no charge to me with the added benefit of I now know for sure it was the pump not working properly instead of an electronic problem with either controls. Did I mention this is the 9th season on this unit & it's definitely been well used.

Jay
 
Can folks who had problems with their Raymarine Auto Pilot units detail how you did the troubleshooting.

I have an Autopilot system that is currently not functioning properly. I would love to get this fixed right away, but not sure how to even begin the process of knowing which component is causing the error.
 
From my experience there's very little a layman can do. I suggest you do what I should have done in the first place & that's to just send the S1000 & S100 into Raymarine for trouble shooting. As Tom stated most of the time one of them is the problem & they'er very easy to remove & ship. If they check out good then take out & send in the pump. Next or perhaps first the auto pilot isn't going to work if it isn't getting the correct GPS input signal. Mine is set up to use with two different GPS units, so after trying both of which have been used for a long time with my S1000, I felt confident in them not being the source of my problem.

Jay
 
To those who have the S1000 auto pilot & do not like the noise of the standard Raymarine pump & so are considering replacing with a less noisy one my experience perhaps could be used as a cautionary tale.
 
I've grown tired of sending nmea 0183 input from one brand to another and not having it work. Each side denies it's their problem and that's how far it goes. No help, just a stone wall. They can't even tell me what their circuit is like: "ooh, that's technical talk."

So on the Raymarine autopilot in Journey On, I run it without any external signals. The model I have has a fluxgate and doesn't need GPS. I also assume that the newest Raymarine autopilot, with their wonderful 9 axis sensor (and I only know of 3 real axis plus time, or 4 axis,) doesn't need a GPS to hold a course.

Somewhere between the one on Journey On (9years old, just like Hunkydory) and the latest one, Raymarine autopilots needed an external GPS signal. So, if the one you're getting does need GPS, I'd buy a Raymarine GPS to make sure they could work together.

Boris

PS I hope this is coherent. It's just that I get so pi--ed when I think about it.
 
Boris,

We purchased the Raymarine Sportpilot with the flux gate compass just before the S1000. The first one they sent, the flux gate compass wouldn't work & we were in preparation for a cruise, so they sent a complete replacement, which for me even though the compass worked was completely worthless as a auto pilot, so it too was returned. The S1000 with its GPS only guidance has been an excellent auto pilot for us considering its price. The only real draw back being as we don't do a lot of fishing was the excessive noise of the pump especially at displacement speed & having to do many changes of the settings for different speeds & conditions in order to maintain good control. The S1000 too had a defect right out of the box which caused me much grief & talk with techs over the phone. I finally solved the problem on my own with a last ditch effort before giving up & that was reversing the + & - GPS signal output from the brain controller to the Nobletech software on my notebook computer. They had come from the factory in the reverse order of the S1000 diagram instructions.

Jay
 
For my part of the trouble shooting, I did several steps.

1. Pick a north-south heading and then activate the pilot in 3 modes.
A/ Push Auto and keep going straight ahead.
B/ Set a cursor out ahead and push go to cursor
C/ Set a waypoint out ahead and then set it in go to waypoint.

2. Repeat the above steps on an east/west course.
A/
B/
C/

3. Repeat the all the above steps while traveling in the opposite direction from the previous trial.

Repeat the above steps and transmit on the VHF in low, medium and high channel, (5, 22, 68 for instance.) I did these because I was having a "GPS data loss" alarm coming up on the Raymarine plotter when traveling in AP on mode, and transmitting VHF at times.

When I took the boat down to Rodgers Marine in Portland, they repeated my testing, and then removed and replaced the individual components of the system until they found the culprit, by eliminating possibilities.

It was way more than I could do on my own, and the fix is well worth the hassle. I spent the last weekend on the boat, and used and love the new EVO-1 Auto pilot. In fact, I went from Fort Warden all the way int Mystery Bay State Park at displacement cruise speed without touching the helm wheel. I only used the AP and it's adjusting knob. (For those who don't know, it is a shallow, and bendy channel, with four curves, 2 big, and 2 short and sharp.) And it worked nicely.

Harvey
SleepyC:moon
 
The S1000 arrived back from the Raymarine service center yesterday sent by Fed X express two day air (when they called informing me it was done & ready to ship I had told them I was leaving the house in three days & received a reply of no problem it will arrive in time) with a new pump, rubber anti vibration & noise spacers & a complete set of hoses & fittings & like I mentioned before a check out with ok on the control units all with no charge. This is quite amazing to me & definitely a reason to consider Raymarine for further purchases. Now I need to get the new HC 4645H Cylinder kit ordered & it all put together before testing the whole system out at Lake Yellowstone & Powell, so we know it'll be good for Alaska next year.
 
Good to hear on the great service Jay. Since Flir bought the company things have improved substantially. It needed improvement! Best of luck on the install. George
 
Back
Top