Raymarine Auto Pilot connected to ANY NMEA 0183

[Québec 1]

Also the flux gate compass does not squeeze behind the dagger board of my 2003 26M. Does it have to be directly behind it or can it be just leaning against it and secured to the head bulkhead under the mirror and the sink?
Thanks to the guys who are helping out here. ..sure makes the job easier. ..gives me a bit more piece of mind .
Q1

Ok Quebec You have an '03 M like me and there is one optimum location that beats all others for the fluxgate compass. Bear in mind that the Raymarine instructions recommend locating the compass between 1/3 and 1/2 way along the waterline which is 23' 2". Measuring from the hull stern transom to the daggerboard you will find the distance exceeds 1/2 the waterline, No good. But now you know how far it is from the hull stern to the daggerboard so you go inside and measure back a few feet from the daggerboard trunk and Voila, you arrive at the companionway ladder which should be about 8-9 feet forward of the transom. Now you should have a little storage lid just under the bottom step of the ladder which provides access to the bilge area. You want to mount that compass against the fiberglass right close to the cabin sole between the two SS ladder poles that are bolted there. That is as close to the waterline you will get, it is abeam at the centerline and between 1/2 and 1/3 of the waterline and as low in the boat you can get. In fact, this is the most superior position in the entire boat for the fluxgate mounting. If you have a battery there, remove it and reposition it elsewhere, my battery is way back at the steering linkage starboard of center, I also have a house battery just under the aft most port seat in a plastic caseing but it does not seem to interfere with the compass. (If you have two batteries you could put one under each aft port and starboard seats to counteract each other)
Now before you start thinking you might step on the compass on your way down the ladder, you don't mount it on the side facing the galley, you mount it facing aft underneath where no one will kick it. When you go out for sea trials to swing the compass you will need to correct for 180 degrees of variation to compensate for the aft facing compass. It works like a charm on mine and I have the Raymarine ST4000+ MKII wheel pilot. Now forget about all other mounting locations and do as you are told

Terry,
That sounds just right. I will go have a look at my 2nd battery (No. 1 battery is on the starboard side against the rear bulkhead) set up and see what I can do seeing as I have my dual battery chooser and shore power and inverter hooked up under the rear starboard seat . I,ll go look now and take a few pics for fun. God this looks like more work than planned!!!

Since I'm retired I have less time to work cause I spend so much time being lazy and doing whatever.
Q1

[Québec 1]

Okay ,
Here are the pics of my set up . Terry , your right this is the perfect place for a Flux gate compass. I will sleep on what to do with the battery ...but I am leaning towards putting it under the aft port side seat as you suggest. The 3 factors that come to mind at the moment are.......
1. that I will need a longer red battery lead cable and
2.I will have to lenghten the 2 yellow wires which are connected to battery No 2 The other cable has enough slack to follow the battery to port.
3. Should i use the screw into the hull battery holder or just box the battery or !
Q1

[Terry]

Well Quebec;
Your #1 aft battery is in the same location as mine, but the #2 is in a a conflicting location. The easiest place to move it is behind that big red Quest dial but that would put the weight of two batteries and your pota pottie on the starboard side so you will have to locate all other heavy stuff to port in order to compensate. But here is another advantage after moving that battery. The compass does not use much space and you have that big cavity under the cover. I went to Walmart and got myself a large rubbermaid or Sterilite plastic container that was shallow, only 5.5" high but quite long and wide and I carefully squeezed it under that cover from one of the larger openings aft. It now serves as a hold for some of my sailing equipment like the winch handle, sail ties, flares, air horn spare parts and other stuff. You have to do it on a warm day or perhaps warm the plastic container in a warm oven for 20 minutes to make it flexible enough to force under there, otherwise it will get split and cracked from stuffing it under the fiberglass. There is also a fiberglass rib protruding down just under the ladder where your compass will mount so you will have to cut a V-slot out of the one edge of the rubbermaid container to get it under the rib. There is not a whole lot of verticle space to work with under there so it is a bit of a challenge, but with patience and perserverence and maybe even having to buy more than one container because you may break the first one, you will eventuall get a big container under there to put your stuff in. I really like being able to just drop down below the ladder to get all my sailing stuff I need for the days sail right there, very convenient and it is a very obvious place for anyone to look for sailing stuff.

[Québec 1]

Terry,

I had a wee dram of Scotch and slept on it!

Either right beside the bottom hinge beside the door or on the fibreglass beneath it, both spots perfectly dead centre of the DB. This is the only place where the compass will be at least 3'3'' from electrical stuff and I don't have to move the battery which is a big big bonus.
By the way my daughter lives in Vancouver. This is her web site.
http://www.beaudrystudio.com/
she's also a model and will be showing up on some giant billboard ad during the Olympics saying something in sign language:

Bertrand

[Oskar 26M]

Hi Q1
In case it helps here are some pics of my installation:

The SPX5 Course Computer on the port side wall of the cockpit well (shown here before I trimmed an clipped the cables). Cables run from the SPX5 aft along the cabin roof to the cable outlet under the pedestal. The controller cable and wheel drive cables are then run inside the pedestal to the controller mounted on the pedestal top and the drive mounted on the port side . Power follows the same route to the base of the pedestal then continues over the board covering the rudder linkage, down to the port aft bilge area and forward to the battery compartment where it is connected via a fuse to the autopilot on-off switch and battery.


Instead of using the pedestal post supplied with the kit (which wont fit on my 2007 M) to lock the wheel drive, I used a stainless steel rod and two eye straps (a method obtained from this forum). It works well and keeps the clutch on the port side away from throttle controls.


My controller is mounted on the top of the pedestal under my GPS. One problem is that I mounted the controller flat on the surface of the pedestal. The pedestal surface slopes down forward so it is not easy to see the controller display when seated.
Controller and GPS
Connection of the NMEA-out + ground from the GPS to the SXP5 is via a short piece of 2-core speaker cable connected at a junction box located on the aft cabin roof adjacent to the pedestal cable outlets. The GPS NMEA-out is also paralleled from the junction box to my VHF radio.

My Fluxgate compass is installed on the wall of the starboard cabin locker immediately aft of the daggerboard trunk. It fits there quite easily and the recess created by the trunk protects it from locker contents. Its cable runs to port under the cabin floor then through along the port bilge area to the transom, up over the board that covers the rudder linkages to the pedestal area then forward to the SPX5.

[Matt19020]

Oskar Thanks for the post ... I like the location Fluxgate Compass and the drive pin ....My battery bay is pretty full and I have no desire to relocate the batteries and switching panels. I may contact you about any problems that I can not overcome but hopefully all will go well. Is this a mod that was worth the install? Any problems with the way the system reacts with a Mac or in general?

[Oskar 26M]

Matt
The Raymarine wheelpilot is without doubt the best mod I've done. Once installed you will wonder how you ever manage to sail without one - well not really, but it is an an amazingly useful device to have on board.
I had absolutely no problems with the installation apart from my nervousness about undertaking it.

It proved to be a remarkably simple installation. The installation manual was clear and helpful and the autopilot passed its commissioning trials without fault. It has performed flawlessly from then on, both under sail and under power, and on GPS or Fluxgate. Its great!

[c130king]

Oskar,

What GPS do you have? And do you have your NMEA output, from the GPS, split to go to the S1 and to another device such as a VHF/DSC radio? Any issues splitting the NMEA output to two devices?

Also, my Dad mailed me the manuals to my new S1 (which is sitting at my Dad's house in Florida) and I am reading all the installation instructions. It states that there is a method of connecting the NMEA output from your GPS to the control unit versus running the wire inside to the computer unit. Has anyone done that? Seems like that may be easier, especially if the control unit is on or near the pedastal and the GPS is also on or near the pedastal.

Thanks,
Jim

[Oskar 26M]

Jim

Having the manuals to read while your boat and autopilot sit on the other side of the Atlantic must be very frustrating. It would drive me nuts!

To answer your questions:

I have a Seiwa Seahorse (Murena) GPS. It has an 8-pin connector with the following pins:
1. Ground (battery negative)
2. Power (battery positive)
3. Input1+
4. Input1-
5. Output2+
6. Output1+
7. Input2+
8. External Alarm Output +

The Seahorse came with an 8-core cable fitted with a waterproof connector to the GPS, bare wires at the other end. I've located the GPS on top of the pedestal and run the cable through the pedestal to an 8-terminal junction strip glued to the cabin roof below. A 2-core 10A double sheathed cable connects battery negative to GPS Pin 1 (Ground), and the battery positive to GPS Pin 2 (Power) at the junction strip. The Seiwa's BB/FF Depth Sounder/Fish Finder control box is also mounted there.

I used 2-core speaker wire (not sure of the gauge, but fairly light) to connect GPS Pin 1 (Ground) to the SPX5 NMEA Input - and the GPS Pin 6 (Output1+) to the SPX5 NMEA Input + as shown in Section 2.9 Optional Connections - NMEA 0183 Devices (page 29 of the Raymarine SmartPilot X-5 Wheel Installation & Setup Guide Document reference: 87074-2 Date: November 2007). Because the SPX5 is located on the port midships cabin roof liner just behind the companionway ladder, the connecting speaker wire cable was very short (about 2 ft) and I did not fit the suppression ferrite referred to in manual.

I also made parallel connections from the same GPS Pin 1 (Ground) and GPS Pin 6 (Output1+) on my junction strip to the Rx- and Rx+ connections of the COM port on my Navman VHF 7000 radio. The radio display shows latitude, longitude and time from the GPS. I again used speaker wire but this wire is much longer because it runs back to the transom, then along the port hull liner and finally up to the radio located next to the M's original switchboard.

I had no problems with splitting the GPS connection to the two listening devices.

I did not try connecting the GPS directly to the Raymarine Controller. All of the cables had to be run through the pedestal anyway. Having the junction strip on the aft cabin roof made additional connections easy, and it keeps everything accessible and nice and dry below decks.

I hope this helps

Gordon

[Québec 1]

SI install:
After reading the install manual I will start by connecting my NMEA directly to the controller as the Manual says either option will work! (KISS).
After reading the manual I realized I had to buy a power cable and that I should , and I quote (ensure you have the appropriate circuit breaker OR fuse) Well once again I see no reason to run it up to the circuit breaker when I can just connect it directly to the battery with a fuse in the wire.

Wondering if anybody did either of the 2 :
1. GPS NMEA directly to controller
2. S! autopilot direct to battery


Thanks,
Q1

[Duane Dunn, Allegro]

I put a simple 4 position panel at my pedestal. I find it very useful to be able to turn on and off various devices separately. Often I want the GPS on, but the AP off. My AP at least doesn't have a power switch so I needed a separate switch so I wasn't wasting power.

[Matt19020]

Thanks Oskar....Well I just recieved the Autopilot today $700. to my door and so far no regrets...I figure about 2-3 weekends before I can get to the install and since others seem to be going thru the same... share your mistakes or success stories so we can all benefit from them.

Duane: I put a switch panel in last season as you have but on the port side ...and I have extra breakers/switches for that purpose...

[Oskar 26M]

Here's a schematic of my autopilot component layout in case it helps:

[atzserv]

Q1,

I installed my autopilot with the fuse in line from the battery. I also added a switch and ther was a reason for that. I have a raymarine chartplotter and autopilot. When the Perko switch is turned on the autopilot senses voltage and goes directly on. The chartplotter on the other hand needs to be turned on once power is applied. The autopilot can be turned off once power is applied by holding the disp button ( I think that is it, I am not at the boat and I forget). That is where forgetting to turn off the perko switch or switch to the autopilot can run a battery down. After all it is easy enough to forget because it deals with the power a little different that most electronics by powering up when power is sensed. This would be my example: you turn on the perko and turn on the fuse that controls lights in the cabin, You replace a burned out light. You turn off fuse panel but forget to turn off the perko. No big deal, you only turned on the fuse panel changed a light turned it back off. Wrong, the autopilot is engaged draining power.

I am the proud owner of one of those battery jump start units from pep boys after learning this and finding out what ran my battery down. I have also added a second battery ect since.

gary

[Québec 1]

Gary,
Well, I would have never thought the autopilot powered up when it senses voltage . I will put in a switch. Did you put your switch on the pedestal like Duane or did you put it before the power input to the computor?
Q1