Airmar H2183 & Maretron 200/300 Gyro Compass

[sailorxyz]

Hi, anyone here have experience with the Airmar H2183 or Maretron SSC200/300 solid state gyro compasses?

I have a Raymarine SmartPilot S3G, hoping to improve it's performance and provide better heading data to the rest of my system. Currently the heading sensor is just the old Raymarine Fluxgate Compass Sensor, which has never been very good.

If you've used both which do you prefer? What did you like/not like?

Thanks in advance!

[a64pilot]

I have the H2183 and it seems to work well, it claims a 2 degree accuracy in pretty much any sea state.
It can do this because these things are what it is called in the aviation world a HARS or heading, attitude reference sensor, which is a sophisticated system using gyroscopes and accelerometers to determine lots more than just heading. I assume all this is available as a chipset or something or surely it wouldn’t be used as just a heading sensor as they are.
http://www.airmar.com/productdescription.html?id=94
The HARS on the original Apache helicopter was a two foot metal box and I’m sure cost more than $100,000, but without it most weapons would only operate in a degraded mode and the inertial Nav system was also seriously degraded.
Now it’s dual ring laser gyro’s and GPS.

But to use a HARS as a compass is I guess like using your chart plotter just as a depth gauge.