I have a
B&G Halcyon 2000
compass feeding into a Hydra 2000 processor and an ACP 2 pilot. The
compass has broken, but can be fixed for $300 with a
software upgrade too. Reading posts here it seems the trend is to move towards a solid state 3 axis stabilized compass like the Maretron SSC200 or Airmar H2183 and I feel I might be able to substantially improve my
equipment with a modern advanced compass like these.
I asked
B&G if I could do it and all they suggested was they can offer me their KVH based unit for $many000s. I don't want to spend that kind of
money, and I don't think I need to. I am hesitant though to buy a unit if it doesn't
work. Would it
work - has anyone tried it or any other type with my kind of B&G set up and can it be adapted to make it work?
Although the pilot works OK, I suspect that imperfect heading information from the B&G
fluxgate compass is the reason why my
autopilot works harder than I think it should. Even on the economy setting it moves a lot. A clue things are not quite right is when I look at the heading read out it takes a while to settle down. It is virtually impossible to follow a heading manually by reading the B&G display numbers. Do these sound like symptoms of the suspected illness?
Maybe I could use it on my
Raymarine RL80CRC radar/plotters? They have a cheapo old
Raymarine fluxgate as their input. Here the problem is that I get a poor MARPA performance with frequent drop-outs and fluctuating CPA information, I suspect here again these problems are down to the poor heading information? How do I get a new compass to work here for me - ideally it would be the same compass?