Forums, Electrical Systems, Navigation and Safety equipment, tiller pilot
00:44 16 October 2023
tiller pilot
Alan Dixon at 28/12/2014 20:48:22
I am considering fitting a Raymarine Evolution tiller pilot EV-100 this system runs an fast seatalk based around NMEA 2000
My Chart plotter is garmin which has NMEA 0183 and 2000. The wind and speed instruments are Raymarine ST40 running old Seatalk which is based on NMEA 0183
I am aware that Seatalk \ NMEA converters are available but this puts £100+ on the price.
Will the tiller pilot system run satisfactorily without input from other instruments?
What is the best place to install the gear below?
Anything else I should be aware of?
Cheers
Alan
00:44 16 October 2023
tiller pilot
caramorsimon at 31/12/2014 23:58:08
Alan, yes it should just “work” without but it works a good deal better with some speed reference & ideally a gps input. I haven’t tried using the autopilot without my gps on, but I’ll check when I’m down in a couple of days.
Your garmin nmea2k output should be ok, you should be able to get an nmea2k <→ seatalkNg cable to connect it to the autopilot without requiring an adapter box (£30? from MES)
You can then decide later if you want to hook up log/wind as well.
Fitting – both my boat (Caramor) and Concerto have EV100s fitted:
Compass
Works well under the saloon starboard bunk, on the centre divider. This should keep it away from anything ferrous in the chart table drawers (eg, cutlery)
ACU
Concerto has hers underneath the chart table, above the cubby bin [its tucked out of the way here, but its a long reach to fit it all]
Caramor has hers just aft of the main electrics boxing & just below the roof of the quarterberth [easy to fit & wire up here although you’ll need a mounting board made up to deal with the curvature of the quarterberth]
Control head
Concerto needed a new hole – it’s in the cockpit side just ahead of the cubby locker on the starbard side. Very easy to access from the rear as it drops down.
Caramor re-used an older ST4000 hole in the main cabin aft bulkhead [using the old cabling to pull the new through, although the STNG connector protrudes into the cabin & needs boxing]
Cabling can be tidied using those sticky pads that accept cable ties.
Setup
Be aware that changing the hull type (eg, if you want to experiment with the “slow turn” variant) will reset some settings (eg, hard over time) which are critical for good operation, but it doesn’t reset everything, which can be confusing…
Usage
This seems a little picky, since generally its pretty good & just works.
It can seem a touch sluggish to apply larger amounts of helm when first engaged. Feels a little like its learning how the boat handles again after a power cycle.
It has been known to complain about being “too far off course” when simply applying more helm would fix the problem. I’ve no idea why it doesn’t do that, unless its gradually losing track of the tiller centre position, although since it can tell when the drive has hit an end stop it shouldn’t really worry too much about that.
I’ll see about posting some photos too.
simon