[C320-list] Autopilot and instrument upgrade

[Chris Burti]

Scott,
May we publish this in Mainsheet? If so, please send  hi-res photos
directly to me.

On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 8:30 AM, Scott Thompson <surprise at thompson87.com> wrote:
> It wasn't cheap. Our bill was almost $19K when all was added up, including
> the governor's 6% and labor costs, and a few weeks of dock time at the yard.
> That also included two new Navpods, all new transducers and wiring,
> including networking (SeaTalkng, RayNet, NMEA2000) for future expansion such
> as AIS or Sirius weather module. It's a bit difficult to break it down by
> subproject since a lot of the labor and networking costs are common across
> multiple instruments.  The breakdown is (roughly) $2K for the new
> instruments and networking, $4.5K for autopilot parts, $3.3K for
> chartplotter and GPS and related parts, about $1K for the new radio, remote
> mic and additional networking to connect the VHF to the GPS, and for future
> expansion. The rest was labor, taxes, and some misc installation materials.
>
> Note that we re-used the old wiring in the mast for the wind unit, which
> means that I now have a spare unused cable. If we had to pull the mast to
> redo the wiring it would have run more. I contemplated spreading this out as
> several projects for different years, but once you start pulling new wires
> to the Navpods you are best off doing it all at once. I balked at the price
> in the first place, but we made a decision that the 320 is the perfect size
> boat for us for the forseeable future, and so were willing to make the
> investment. To put this in perspective, the initial estimates for just a
> wheel pilot replacement were around $3.5K installed, and the below decks
> linear drive installation would have been about twice that on a standalone
> basis once you allocate a certain amount of the installation labor.
>
>
> On 6/6/2013 2:26 AM, Tim Fleming wrote:
>>
>> Sweet setup Scott may I inquire as to some of the costs?
>> Tim
>> Ole'
>> #928
>>
>> On Jun 5, 2013, at 2:47 PM, "Scott Thompson" <surprise at thompson87.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I have posted some pictures on the web site of the new autopilot
>>> installation on my 1999 boat "Surprise." I was looking to replace my tired
>>> old wheel pilot unit that finally failed with a "Seatalk Error" that I
>>> couldn't solve last year.
>>>
>>> The album can be found here:
>>> http://www.catalina320.com/mediagallery/album.php?aid=274&page=1.
>>>
>>> This is a below-decks autopilot using the Raymarine Type-1 linear drive
>>> unit. The drive is mounted to the port side of the rudder post on the
>>> lateral bulkhead that separates the steering gear from the aft cabin. It is
>>> bolted to a custom mounting plate on the bulkhead, which is through-bolted
>>> to a backing plate inside the aft cabin, just above the internal access
>>> hatch for the steering gear compartment. The only part of the system that is
>>> above deck or exposed to the elements is the P70 control head at the helm
>>> station. The X-10 course computer is mounted just outboard of the linear
>>> drive on the port side. A rudder reference unit is mounted to starboard on
>>> another custom bracket attached to the corner of the shelf above the fuel
>>> tank. The fluxgate compass is mounted in the same location as the old one,
>>> on a stringer over the center line of the bilge, between the galley sink and
>>> head door.
>>>
>>> Some notes on the installation:
>>>
>>> The linear drive drives the rudder through an Edson tiller arm that
>>> points forward when the wheel is centered. The arm is attached to the rudder
>>> post just below the main steering quadrant, which is the only possible
>>> location. There is just barely enough clearance for the tiller arm to swing
>>> un-obstructed in this location. The installer had originally planned to
>>> mount the drive on the underside of the swim platform, which is a common
>>> location for installations on the 350 or 355. However the swim platform is
>>> relatively low on the 320, making that arrangement impossible. The selected
>>> mounting location on the lateral bulkhead seems plenty strong, however, with
>>> the added benefit that no holes were needed through the deck or hull.
>>>
>>> Use of the linear drive requires limiting rudder swing to 35 degrees in
>>> each direction. To achieve this, some small blocks were added to the rudder
>>> stops, which are molded into the bottom of the deck just above the steering
>>> quadrant, for those who didn't know. (I didn't know where they were until
>>> this project.)
>>>
>>> In principle, both the drive unit and rudder reference unit should be
>>> mounted in exactly the same plane (or a parallel plane) as the tiller arm on
>>> the rudder. Since the 320 rudder post is not "vertical" (i.e. is tilted
>>> relative to the bulkhead and other surfaces in the steering compartment), in
>>> theory the mounting plates and brackets should have some compensation for
>>> the angle of the rudder post. They do not, but everything still seems to
>>> work OK. I did not measure, but the linear drive appears to be within 5
>>> degrees of the correct plane, which is the outside tolerance for mounting
>>> per the installation instructions.
>>>
>>> Sea trial calibration was very easy. We had to do some big circles to
>>> swing the compass. Unlike older units, the new system alerts you if you are
>>> turning too fast or slow. We got maximum deviation of just 4 degrees, which
>>> is excellent. (It is a mystery to me how the computer figures this out.) The
>>> computer can compensate for up to 15 degrees. Then we put the drive in
>>> "autolearn" mode. After a few minutes of crazy Ivans it was done. The only
>>> tweak to drive settings I made was to turn down the drive response from 5
>>> (midpoint) to 4 in an effort to cut power usage a bit. The unit still works
>>> fine on 4. Cutting it further to 3 caused poor course-keeping, I found.
>>>
>>> So how does it work?  Like a charm. The X-10 steers extremely well, even
>>> with a following sea. No more snake-wake for Surprise. The drive is barely
>>> audible from the cockpit. I can't hear it at all except when sailing in very
>>> quiet conditions. It is freaky to watch it steer, since it silently makes
>>> lots of the same small adjustments I would make. It's really nice having the
>>> cleaner helm station without the old ST4000 drive wheel and motor. I suspect
>>> the new system uses somewhat more power than the old unit, but that is part
>>> of the tradeoff for getting better steering, since the rudder is more active
>>> than with the old system, making more frequent but smaller adjustments.
>>> There is very little friction in the system, and manual steering is very
>>> light with the drive in Standby. It's also nice to not have to think about
>>> the drive clutch when I switch between Standby and Auto, since that is
>>> completely automatic.
>>>
>>> I do have a few minor complaints. As previously mentioned, I had to give
>>> up a bit of rudder swing. That doesn't seem to be much of an issue so far.
>>> The P70 control head has a general purpose color backlit LCD display with
>>> all kinds of display customization and bells and whistles possible. However
>>> it doesn't have as much contrast as the older units, especially with
>>> sunglasses, and I need to keep the brightness set to 100% in sunshine. The
>>> "graphical" display mode on the P70 does not match the pictures in the
>>> manual, and is an extremely distracting and lame "rolling road" animated
>>> graphic. A lot of this doesn't matter since the new e95 MFD chartplotter
>>> that I installed at the same time is highly customizable to show whatever
>>> you might want.
>>>
>>> We also replaced the speed, wind, and depth instruments and transducers
>>> at the same time, added an external GPS antenna, and the previously
>>> mentioned e95 chartplotter, all from Raymarine. (Raymarine is running a
>>> promotion where I will receive an i70 multifunction display for "free" since
>>> I purchased the e95. I don't know what I will do with that.) In general the
>>> new instruments are similar to the old ST60 ones that they replaced.
>>>
>>> The e95 is my first chartplotter. Previously I used a hand-held Garmin
>>> GPS76 unit on a bicycle handlebar mount above the instruments, with a
>>> data/power cable interfaced to the autopilot through a connector I installed
>>> on the back of the Navpod. This system worked very well, albeit without the
>>> fancy graphical displays, and with no chart information. But it used almost
>>> no power and was a familiar and easy to use friend that worked well with the
>>> Raymarine pilot through the NMEA interface. The e95 is highly customizable
>>> and will show you almost anything you can think of with the right inputs and
>>> enough configuration. It is bright, colorful (and power hungry) and comes
>>> with a 300 page pdf manual that I am still trying to work through. I'm still
>>> getting used to it and hope it will become as second nature to use as my
>>> ancient Garmin. However I have a few complaints about it. It sounds a VERY
>>> loud and annoying waypoint arrival alarm when I am still a good distance
>>> from a waypoint. If I push "track" to accept the new course (and to silence
>>> the alarm) it IMMEDIATELY turns the ship in the direction of the new
>>> waypoint rather than waiting until I actually reach the old waypoint. On
>>> several occasions this caused me to almost run into large buoys or fixed
>>> markers, or to turn inside of them instead of passing on the required side.
>>> Fortunately the Standby button is easy to reach. Hopefully I can find some
>>> parameters to tweak so that the chartplotter gives more reasonable course
>>> change instructions to the autopilot. And why can't they implement an alarm
>>> that gives some warning before arrival, but doesn't sound like a fire alarm
>>> until you actually get there? I'm also annoyed that the new unit has no
>>> tide/current info unless I upgrade to "Gold" or "Platinum" Navionics charts
>>> at a high price. And the Voyage Planner software is an extra $49 on top of
>>> the $$$$ for the chartplotter, but is totally brain dead. However it's the
>>> only tool I've found for transferring waypoint or route information to/from
>>> the unit because Raymarine insists on using a proprietary file format. Seems
>>> to me that the included software for the fishfinder, radar, AIS, weather
>>> data, infrared camera, XM/Sirius radio, and Raymarine proprietary sound
>>> system (none of which I have) should be priced extra rather than the simple
>>> and buggy waypoint transfer software.
>>>
>>> Finally, we swapped out the VHF for a new ICOM model with remote mic at
>>> the helm.  I finally have DSC and a working distress alert system.
>>>
>>> Kudos to Phil and his team at Electronic Marine in Annapolis who did
>>> beautiful work installing all of the above on a tight schedule.
>>>
>
>



-- 
Chris Burti
Farmville, NC