Raymarine autopilot hard to port

[Sherlock]

My autopilot worked fine and then this happened:When I invoke the autopilot, it immediately turns to port. After a few minutes the boat turns more than 20 degrees fromt he sleected heading and the autopilot issues the warning. It appears that it knows that it is going in the wrong direction, but still turns to port. I have the 7000 series with the added Gyro.Any ideas?

 

[Rich Stidger]

Try this.....

Since the 7000 AP worked in the past, I assume that you do not have a computer firmware issue. There was a firmware update back in the 1998 time frame that corrected weird AP movements similar to what you describe.I would check the connections to the AP computer, particularly the ones to the fluxgate compass.Also check the fluxgate compass to be sure that it is still mounted correctly. I had mine fastened with some double-stick adhesive foam and it let go after seven years. The AP went nuts with the fluxgate compass just lying in the bottom of the compartment.

 

[Ernie]

I've had similar problems, I'm curious..

I just (last year) installed a new Raymarine autopilot (the S-1 model) on my Hunter 33(1979). The AP works fine for maintaining a course that has been manually set up, but as soon as I try to kick it into "track" mode and therefore work with the GPS, the AP takes the boat on a hard ninety degree turn to port. I thought I had fixed the problem by connecting my GPS to the course computer rather than the control head, but the problem has sprung up again this year. Last year I contacted Raymarine Tech Support, and they said they had never heard of this occuring before and really didn't have much to offer.If anyone else has a soltion to this, I'm all ears!!!

 

[Paul Akers]

My A/H 4000...

...took a hard-to-port turn once when I used the H/H radio a bit too close to the fluxgate compass. Be careful, please!

 

[Sherlock]

Resolved for now

Thanks for the ideas.I spoke to Raymarine vie their website and they suggested sending the computer (S3) in for repairs. Before doing this I spoke to the folks at West Marine in CT and they were kind enough to place me on a call with a technician at Raymarine that recommend a number of things to isolate the problem.As it turns out it appears that the configuration had been lost. I started by recallobrating the rudder postion, then running the seatrial to recallobrate the compass. After correcting this the settings were updated and now everything seems to work well.I am not sure what would have caused the system to loose the settings but will watch it closely.