Raymarine 4000 Autopilot fishtailing on 320

[Steve Dale]

I have a 2000 Hunter 320 and have all Raytheon of Ray Marine instruments. The Autopilot is fishtailing. The problem I suspected is that I mounted the compass on the Stern. I tried to mount the compass in the center of the boat - but could not work the line through the conduit - tried for 4 hours and gave up. Compass is on the stern at this point.Talked with Ray Marine technical support and they told me that moving the compass would help - but that I need a $300 sensor on the rudder because the turning radius on the wheel is only 1 1/2 turns. Is that so - and also is the sensor hard to install?Lastly - I am installing a Raychart 435 this weekend. I was surprised that the chartplotter does not have seatalk. Will the chartplotter help?Steve Dale

 

[Terry]

Hi Steve, we had a similar problem on our...

H28 and I got the same wrong story from technical support. In our case it was not the fluxgate compass location. Dig out your installation and setup manual and recheck your settings. In our situation the snaking was caused by the rudder gain setting. For some reason whenever we shut off power to the system it would change from the correct setting of "1" to the default "5". When I re-installed the settings it cured the problem.Terry

 

[Bryan Pfaffenberger]

Yes, it's probably rudder gain

Be aware that there are TWO ways to change the rudder gain settings - one is temporary, and is lost when you switch off power. I believe the permanent setting is found in the "Dealer Settings" menu. Pull out the manual - you'll need it. BTW, the fluxgate compass on my Hunter 30 is mounted in the stern and works fine -- with the right rudder gain setting.

 

[Palmer King]

It is rudder gain

Have the same problem on my boat, especially since it varies from beat to run.I set the default to 4 for beating, and temp change it on a run to 2. That seems to keep the snaking to a minimum.