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Old 26-04-2010, 06:17   #1
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Autohelm 6000 (Looking for Parts)

Good news and bad. The good is that my electrician has righted many an evil left behind by thirty years of bad installations of ancillary equipment that previous owners unwittingly paid for. For instance, the masthead tricolor was wired with speaker wire (I'm not kidding). My bonding system is pristine. The added galvonic isolator is inconspicuously doing it's job. The bad news is the autopilot. When I bought the boat (Gulfstar 37) five years ago, it was advertised with an autohelm 6000. The surveyor didn't seem much concerned with it as I recall. Being on the upper streches of a river, I never had occasion to test it out. I got dinged by a drifting boat during tropical storm Fay and have been on the hard for over a year and a half. Brought the boat down to St. Augustine for repairs and we got the pilot to work, but found it would drift. My electrician has installed many an autopilot. Unfortunately he tells me that mine has been treated to the ol' sawdust in the transmission trick, as I am missing a component called a Rudder mixer I believe. Anyhow without this gizmo my pilot is incomplete and non-functional. He showed me where someone spliced some wires to make it engage the ram, making it appear to work. He says that the good news is that the ram will work with any of the core packs available on the market, so I'm not completely out. Since Autohelm 6000 is ancient, I'm sure no parts are available. Anyone have any advice on how to proceed?
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Old 26-04-2010, 08:06   #2
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Ebay has Raymarine and Autohelm autopilot parts listed all the time. I would'n't spend much on an old autopilot like this. If it has an Autohelm Linear drive like this one:

Then it is usable with a number of other vendors Autopilot computers, such as Raymarine, Furuno, etc.

Paul L
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Old 26-04-2010, 08:54   #3
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I got some bits and pieces for an ST6000 including the brain.
If interested, send me a PM
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Old 26-04-2010, 09:14   #4
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The Autohelm 6000 Installation & Operating Handbook is available on the Raymarine site. Your electrician would benefit from a read. You will notice that the Autohelm 6000 does not use a rudder reference. The problem lies elsewhere, perhaps in the fluxgate compass.

We have used this autopilot on our boat for the last 5 years with no problems. We recently replaced it with a Raymarine X30 in order connect to chartplotters and wind instruments. The linear drive unit provided with the AH6000 is equivalent to the Type 1 linear drive that is still available from Raymarine. We replaced that with the Type 2 hydraulic linear drive because it was undersized for our boat. We keep the AH6000 on board as a backup.
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Old 31-07-2011, 04:28   #5
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Re: Autohelm 6000 (Looking for Parts)

If you are still looking for an Autohelm 6000...

******** COMPLETE AUTOHELM 6000 AUTOPILOT SYSTEM **********

I have recently replaced my auto pilot and have a complete and fully functioning Autohelm 6000 system for sale. Great as a primary system or for hard to get spares!!

Includes:
Fluxgate compass
Control heads
Course computer
Type 1 linear drive unit

Can ship at buyers expense...email for more information - makenway@gmail.com
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Old 14-09-2014, 03:22   #6
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Re: Autohelm 6000 (Looking for Parts)

This unit has sold.
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Old 21-09-2014, 14:56   #7
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Re: Autohelm 6000 (Looking for Parts)

Good the OP got helped.

I have a similar issue with my Autohelm 6000 control head. Fortunately, I have two so I could simply move the cabin one to the cockpit. If anyone is willing to sell parts for this ancient unit I would prefer to leave the original one in the cabin.

The one in the cabin is working great and the linear drive is also in working condition.

Anyone got an extra control head laying around?
If not, is the Raymarine Autohelm ST6000 control head or others compatible?
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