Auto pilot disengages

[Greg4cocokai]

Fletch, I had to register to give my 2 cents. I had the same problem for the 1st year of our cruise with my S3G raymarine. Always at 3:00am! I finally ran a new 2/#8ga. cables from my main battery connections to the A/P breaker and already had 2/#8ga. to the drive pump. Make sure the grounds are good. I've sailed 4 years and 20,00nms since and it hasn;t happened again! Good luck Greg

[daddle]

Loose power or common connection. Check everything from battery thru the breakers to the corepack.

[lrclough]

I have had the Raymarine autopilot Type 2 hydraulic drive with an S2 Corepack on a 30,000 lb sailboat for the past 3 years with no problems, but just this week it disengaged while under sail twice and would not re-engage for an hour or more.

The techs at Raymarine initially attributed the problem to low voltage, and then to a defective solenoid, part #M81167, which Raymarine says is out of stock and will not be available for 3-4 weeks.

[sabray]

the older 100 and 300 series ex autohelm had a terrible interface to the drive. Using pressure snaps to connect. If I had revived mine I would have put in a relay to take the load. just put a new Garmin gh12 in and hope it is better. the interconnects are better then the older 100 series. hoping that internal relay is more robust. the newer ray core pack looks pretty good I went with garmin because of cost and integration with a 4208. nice install and great Garmin user friendly interface.

[donradcliffe]

Originally Posted by lrclough

I have had the Raymarine autopilot Type 2 hydraulic drive with an S2 Corepack on a 30,000 lb sailboat for the past 3 years with no problems, but just this week it disengaged while under sail twice and would not re-engage for an hour or more.

The techs at Raymarine initially attributed the problem to low voltage, and then to a defective solenoid, part #M81167, which Raymarine says is out of stock and will not be available for 3-4 weeks.

I had the same thing happen on a new Simrad drive, and got the same story on availability from them. Fortunately I hosted a meeting for the West Marine product reps at he yacht club, and told my story to them. I got a call the next day from the West Coast Simrad rep, who brought over a new drive assembly and let me swap out the solenoid and valve with mine.

The Simrad and Raymarine drives may use the same solenoid, and they probably know that there is a bad batch of them circulating. I am sure that Raymarine has many, many drives with spare solenoids sitting around, and that with the proper motivation they also can get you one tomorrow.