Help me to like my Autohelm EV-100 Autopilot

[6volt]

I'm totally frustrated with my Raymarine EV-100 Autopilot.

I purchased it 6 months ago for a 10 meter tiller steered catamaran and have since sailed 3500 nm in a variety of conditions from Tasmania westward through the Southern Ocean to Cape Leeuwin and then north to the Kimberley Region.

It replaced an ageing Raymarine 4000 system.

The Ev-100 seems to be totally dumbed down so there is actually very little fine tuning by the skipper.

The TURN_RATE appears to be the main controll.

What is this" turn rate" referred to by the non english speaking goose, that wrote the vague instruction leaflet?
What do people have it set to. Surely this "turn rate " varies as to which portion of the wave ,one is surfing on (ie boat speed) . or, in light wind as the puffs come through the boat speed/turn rate also changes rapidly and often.

The EV-100, just like the 4000 system does not like waves, and sets up a sawing motion in the tiller ram when ever a power boat races past leaving a wake, or when the boat is pitching into a head sea. On the 4000 I had the ability to stop this by going into the "Dealer Cal" section and reducing the sensitivity to zero. How are people combatting this on the EV-100?

The minimal instructions available are terrible. They can't even get the terminology correct between the rudder and the tiller. I'm starting to think that the software engineer has never been on a boat.

H E L P

[muttnik]

Stupid question but have you read the manual for the control head? That's where the set-up and control instructions are:
p70 & p70R Autopilot Control Heads | Raymarine

Sorry if I've misunderstood the question

[6volt]

Originally Posted by muttnik

Stupid question but have you read the manual for the control head? That's where the set-up and control instructions are:
p70 & p70R Autopilot Control Heads | Raymarine

Sorry if I've misunderstood the question

Yes.

Thankyou for your assistance.

[muttnik]

Originally Posted by 6volt

Yes.

Thankyou for your assistance.

I'm not sure I understand...If you have read it then how have I assisted?

I asked because the manual is significantly more than a leaflet and response levels are called "response levels" (although there's only 3: leisure/cruising/performance). There's also quite a bit of information about calibration and setting hull type (with a specific catamaran setting), drive type and rudder alignment which is about rudder alignment and limits (with rudder meaning rudder, not tiller). So I was wondering if maybe you'd read the EV installation manual (which is pretty sparse) but not realised that all the meat was in the control head manual.

My EV-200 performs pretty well, but then I don't have a cat...

[Stockie]

Hello 6 volt.
I recently fitted an EV200 after first discovering that an EV100 would be possibly overloaded in my yacht. Bavaria 37 6900kg quoted displacement. Raymarine advised me to add 20% to the 6900 to get an estimated true sailing weight.
But getting back to your complaint of both systems regarding rudder control, can I ask, have you installed the optional rudder reference control? This eliminates the need to calibrate the hard over times etc and I suspect makes the unit far more responsive! This is my first experience with AP's but I honestly could not be happier with the way the system steers through waves, down wind, three quarter it's works very well. I note though it will tend to use the rudder to try and hold the hull as stable as possible, like with beam on seas under motor, more so than a human would!
Cheers Richard