This is an email from Raymarine Tech Support in response to several questions from owners concerning SeaTalk and Autopilots. Hope this helps answer some of our questions. I will go over this info tonight. From Chris Martin Raymarine Sr. Product Support Engineer To Mr. McHugh, I have addressed your questions as well as the others you sent from the Hunterowners BBS. I hope this helps! 1. The SeaTalk system was not designed to have separate breakers. It was designed that the pilot would provide all power to the instrument system. If you use different power sources you are going to induce problems into the system. For instance, let's say we have the following system. ST 60 Wind, Speed, Depth, GPS, and ST 6000 plus autopilot. This system has two circuit breakers. One breaker for the instruments and a separate breaker for the pilot. With this system we have two different scenarios. The first, all three SeaTalk wires (ground, power, and data) are connected between the two systems. What will happen is, if you power the instruments and not the pilot, the pilot will come on anyway by backfeeding from the instruments. When you try to use the pilot, it keeps kicking into standby because there is not enough power to maintain the pilot and you might even cause the breaker to "pop". The second, you only connect two of the wire from SeaTalk (ground and data). When both breakers are turned on, all works great!! But if the instrument is turned off, the pilot shows a SeaTalk failure and will not work. This is because the instruments being turned off has crashed the data bus which the pilot needs to work. Now if the pilot is off and the instruments breaker is on, the independent instruments seems to work fine, but any instrument that needs SeaTalk to display data, will not work. These instruments are repeaters like the multi, 2nd wind, depth, or speed display. The GPS will not work because it needs the SeaTalk to talk to the antenna. This all happens because now the pilot has crashed the bus. So as you can see, separating the power from these systems just does not work!! If you have to have separate systems, then have separate systems and do not connect the SeaTalk between them. Now there is also two ways to over come this. The first is to buy a NMEA bridge that we sell. Connect it to the instruments via SeaTalk and then connect NMEA in and NMEA out to the pilot. Now you get the data from each system without causing problems. Cost, about $200.00 for the box and some extra cables. The second is to have an electronic technician make up a special boat which has two relays back to back. If it does not see power from it’s own system, it does not close and therefor, SeaTalk won't be crashed. Price, about $200.00 plus for time and parts. 2. To check to see if the gyro is working, go out and get into a following sea and watch the performance. Now you have to be in response level 3 for the gyro's information to be used by the pilot. Then when you see how it is working, turn it off. This is done by changing from response level 3 to 1 or 2. Then see the difference in the yaw rate. As for the questions you forwarded from the Hunterowners BBS, here are the answers! I will only provide the answers. From Cesar Torres from Puerto Rico: If you know that the type one drive unit is good to 22,000 pound and the type 2 is good up to 44,000 pounds, the only question is what does your boat weight?? If the cruising weight is 22,000 pounds or less, use the type 1. If it is close to 22,000 pounds or over, but under 44,000 pounds, use the type 2. We recommend that the pilot be installed by an authorized dealer. The installation is fairly easy but if you do not install it properly or install it on a sound structure, you can damage your boat and this damage can place the boat in harms way!!!. Ken Kindrick from Long Beach CA: There is some software out there that we change to a pulse modulated drive signal. This was done to save power and keep the drive fets cooler. Unfortunately, we used 2500 Hz to accomplish this. This is right in the hearing range of people. So what happens is every time the drive drives, it sings to you as well. It is not recommend that you change to drive level 5. Drive 5 is used only with solenoid driven systems. We have told customer to do this just to get home from a trip. We recommended that the computer be sent in for a software change. At that time, we would have put in a lower software value until the new software was ready. This software is now ready and if you send us your computer, we will be happy to upgrade it for you. The new version is level 15. You can check your software level by pressing and holding the "Standby" key for about 6 seconds. The display will change and show a "VERSION XX" and then change to "165PXX". The first number is the display software, the second is the computer software and this is the one we are interested in. Send your computer to: Raymarine 22 Cotton Road Unit D Nashua, NH 03063. Rick Dinon from Marina del Rey, CA: Unfortunately, there is not a place aboard a boat that always used to mount equipment. If you can not find your computer, I suggest that you contact your installer and ask him. But the 520 does not have to be connected to the computer directly. It can be plugged in to SeaTalk anywhere on the bus. You can go right into the back of the pilot's control head or anywhere else on the bus. As for spicing the SeaTalk bus, this can be done very easily. I do not like butt connectors so I suggest to solder and heat shrink, or terminal box. Mickey McHugh from Kemah, TX: When you have long cable runs or have a lot of instruments there is a possibility of voltage drops in the system. These voltage drops will take down an instrument, multiple instruments, or the whole system. By daisy chaining them all back, you prevent this from happening. Dan Jonas from Sausalito: See the first item answered above. I can't believe that our product support personnel did not answer this question for you. I hope my explanation above will help you. Well I hope I have at least given you all the information here to sort out each of you issues. Chris Martin, Sr. Product Support Engineer
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Seperate circuits
Chris, I appreciate your response, but find that part of it seems inaccurate, although I will recheck next time I'm at the boat. I have wired my system as you indicate (seperate autopilot and instruments). Interestingly, Hunter, who installs SeaTalk and Raytheon as standard, also has seperate instrument and autopilot circuit breakers clearly labeled, and they hooked the seatalk to the instrument breaker. I might add that Raytheon drawings are also unclear about the power source, but the text is clear that instruments power from the autopilot. Where I think you are inaccurate is your statement regarding the ability of the gps to function when the autopilot is off. I turn on instruments (which powers everything except the autopilot) and my gps seems to work fine, reporting my accurate position on the chartplotter, at least at the nav station (I know this because I turn it on occasionally to play with it while at the dock). This is without the autopilot breaker on. Perhaps my other chartplotter, which is on the other side of the SeaTalk line from the autopilot does not work....I'll check and make sure. I have no real reason to run the autopilot without turning on the instrument circuit breaker also. However, I do often want the instruments without the autopilot on. So it seems that my solution to the problem is a workable one. The risk I take is that the instrument side of the circuit fails and then I am without an autopilot....seems like a reasonable risk. But then I could just plug in that seatalk power wire to the autopilot and alternate power flows to the instruments...maybe I am better off. I am a little amazed that Raytheon would require the autopilot to power the instruments. The instruments do not require much in the way of power, but why run the autopilot when all you need is the instruments. I do understand that the autopilot only works with the SeaTalk input, so is it to prevent someone from atempting to utilize the autopilot without the required subsystems? I do not have any secondary instruments, no repeater, just the primary ST60 wind, speed and depth. Just my thoughts, and I do appreciate your efforts to let us know how it should work. Dan Jonas
Chris, I appreciate your response, but find that part of it seems inaccurate, although I will recheck next time I'm at the boat. I have wired my system as you indicate (seperate autopilot and instruments). Interestingly, Hunter, who installs SeaTalk and Raytheon as standard, also has seperate instrument and autopilot circuit breakers clearly labeled, and they hooked the seatalk to the instrument breaker. I might add that Raytheon drawings are also unclear about the power source, but the text is clear that instruments power from the autopilot. Where I think you are inaccurate is your statement regarding the ability of the gps to function when the autopilot is off. I turn on instruments (which powers everything except the autopilot) and my gps seems to work fine, reporting my accurate position on the chartplotter, at least at the nav station (I know this because I turn it on occasionally to play with it while at the dock). This is without the autopilot breaker on. Perhaps my other chartplotter, which is on the other side of the SeaTalk line from the autopilot does not work....I'll check and make sure. I have no real reason to run the autopilot without turning on the instrument circuit breaker also. However, I do often want the instruments without the autopilot on. So it seems that my solution to the problem is a workable one. The risk I take is that the instrument side of the circuit fails and then I am without an autopilot....seems like a reasonable risk. But then I could just plug in that seatalk power wire to the autopilot and alternate power flows to the instruments...maybe I am better off. I am a little amazed that Raytheon would require the autopilot to power the instruments. The instruments do not require much in the way of power, but why run the autopilot when all you need is the instruments. I do understand that the autopilot only works with the SeaTalk input, so is it to prevent someone from atempting to utilize the autopilot without the required subsystems? I do not have any secondary instruments, no repeater, just the primary ST60 wind, speed and depth. Just my thoughts, and I do appreciate your efforts to let us know how it should work. Dan Jonas
Mickey; Great Information... Thanks
Good to see Raymarine jump in on this. And, yes, when I switch on the instruments, the autopilot light on the breaker panel lights up. I think I know why now. I still do not have my seatalk talking to my 520, but I will once I buss into the ring... I think. Rick D.
Good to see Raymarine jump in on this. And, yes, when I switch on the instruments, the autopilot light on the breaker panel lights up. I think I know why now. I still do not have my seatalk talking to my 520, but I will once I buss into the ring... I think. Rick D.
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