Attaching ram to quadrant

[Terra Nova]

Don't weld on your quadrant.

The approved way to connect an a/p ram to a mechanical steered boat is to install an auxiliary, below-decks tiller arm, such as supplied by Edson, for just such purpose.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Terra Nova

Don't weld on your quadrant.

The approved way to connect an a/p ram to a mechanical steered boat is to install an auxiliary, below-decks tiller arm, such as supplied by Edson, for just such purpose.

While this is true. , most modern quadrant castings have a cast support for an AP arm pivot in my experience. And the use of the quadrant is a very common installation approach. In my view the redundancy provided by a tiller arm is somewhat illusionary.

Dave


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[Terra Nova]

The pro's use the auxiliary tiller arm. It facilitates positioning the ram where there is space for it.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Terra Nova

The pro's use the auxiliary tiller arm. It facilitates positioning the ram where there is space for it.

Not sure what you mean by " pros". In workboats the steering is hydraulic from the get go .


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[Terra Nova]

Originally Posted by chris95040

For folks with quadrant mechanical steering and linear autopilots...

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Not sure what you mean by " pros". In workboats the steering is hydraulic from the get go ...

Pro's are the guys who install autopilots for a living.

Not sure how your reference to hydraulic steering applies? OP specified mechanical.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Terra Nova

Pro's are the guys who install autopilots for a living.



Not sure how your reference to hydraulic steering applies? OP specified mechanical.

Pros , you mean " dealers " , for me pros in that context are boat builders , they often use quadrant attached arms.


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[antoha]

Here are a few more photos showing the details of drilling the quadrant and mounting the stainless plate across it.

I had to partially file bolt heads so they fit in the space. First I made a mistake (shown) by filing off the wrong corner : you want to keep as many facets intact so you can still use a wrench on what's left.




The advantages of a "split" hydraulic liner ram that I see are: 1. You can mount the drive at any angle you want, even upside down - hence your geometry will be all in a plane; 2. You can mount the pump much closer to the autopilot computer, which makes for shorter wire runs and hence less ohmic losses and thinner wires (my drive has 4 foot hoses (they make custom sizes too, within reason) which means that I am saving about 4-6 ft round trip wire run, and if I could mount it so the hoses were straight it would be 8 ft of course but the ram is mounted across the hull rather than along it); 3. If either ram or drive fails separately down the line, I can replace just the failed component and not the whole system. 4. This specific manufacturer sells a low power consumption clutch for their systems - otherwise you are burning 15 watts just to keep the drive engaged, regardless of how much the pilot itself is working.


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[deblen]

Originally Posted by Terra Nova

Pro's are the guys who install autopilots for a living.

Not sure how your reference to hydraulic steering applies? OP specified mechanical.

chris started this thread-asking how to connect a linear ram to a mechanical(Edson type) quadrant -could have been electric (Ray M81130 or equiv) or hydraulic-makes no matter-a ram is a ram.

I was a professional a/p installer-30+yrs-including the rams & hydraulics.

Just passing some personal experience along-no need for anyone to follow it.

Cheers/ Len

[deblen]

Originally Posted by antoha

Here are a few more photos showing the details of drilling the quadrant and mounting the stainless plate across it.

I had to partially file bolt heads so they fit in the space. First I made a mistake (shown) by filing off the wrong corner : you want to keep as many facets intact so you can still use a wrench on what's left.

Attachment 96170Attachment 96171
Attachment 96172

The advantages of a "split" hydraulic liner ram that I see are: 1. You can mount the drive at any angle you want, even upside down - hence your geometry will be all in a plane; 2. You can mount the pump much closer to the autopilot computer, which makes for shorter wire runs and hence less ohmic losses and thinner wires (my drive has 4 foot hoses (they make custom sizes too, within reason) which means that I am saving about 4-6 ft round trip wire run, and if I could mount it so the hoses were straight it would be 8 ft of course but the ram is mounted across the hull rather than along it); 3. If either ram or drive fails separately down the line, I can replace just the failed component and not the whole system. 4. This specific manufacturer sells a low power consumption clutch for their systems - otherwise you are burning 15 watts just to keep the drive engaged, regardless of how much the pilot itself is working.


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Nice workmanship on quadrant "bracket!

Yes-the electric pumpset can be mounted anywhere that is convenient & dry.Length of hyd. hoses doesn't matter & hose is rel. cheap.Length of pump wire does matter-closer to bat. distribution the better.
Pumpsets can be noisy/whiny though.

[antoha]

Len, thank you for the kind words.

i think one of the still unanswered qns from the OP's post is: how big of a deal is the twisting of the linear ram rod? in other words: suppose you're still within specs for tilt (<5deg, etc), but the rudder stock is not perpendicular to the drive's mounting base. as the rod moves in and out, it will rotate along its own axis (this is quantifiable, i'm sure, but it's probably only easy to do after the install). is that a problem?

i tried to keep all of my stuff in one plane, but it's not that easy when marking for the installation, so i hope i did it approximately well enough.

Anton

[antoha]

Chris,
your RR is a beauty! please upload photos if you can. we were looking at a Cheoy Lee in Marion, MA i believe when shopping for boat in 2010 (which is when we ended up purchasing our NE38 - in Salem, MA), but that seller appeared not to be that interested in actually selling the boat (he was quite delighted to say "well if i don't sell her for the crazy price i'm asking, i will enjoy sailing her which i do very much" - not sure what the point of placing the ad was, the boat was in very good shape with lots of money and effort put in, so as an investment it certainly didn't add up - but maybe it was just the social component, strangers coming aboard and all commenting on how great a job he had done with the boat).

Anton.

[colemj]

I don't know how much rotation you are expecting to have, but you may want to use a rose joint for the connection point. This will allow some rotation without actually rotating the rod.

Mark

[deblen]

Originally Posted by antoha

Len, thank you for the kind words.

i think one of the still unanswered qns from the OP's post is: how big of a deal is the twisting of the linear ram rod? in other words: suppose you're still within specs for tilt (<5deg, etc), but the rudder stock is not perpendicular to the drive's mounting base. as the rod moves in and out, it will rotate along its own axis (this is quantifiable, i'm sure, but it's probably only easy to do after the install). is that a problem?

i tried to keep all of my stuff in one plane, but it's not that easy when marking for the installation, so i hope i did it approximately well enough.

Anton

The 5deg limits are mainly to stay within the limits of the ball & socket (heim) fittings used on ram ends.
If you visualize a rudder stock that is tilted,like many sailboats,& visualize a tiller arm mounted on stock -then looking aft ,the front end of the tiller arm will travel in an arc-humped up at mid travel,& lower at each hard over P & S. A quadrant will do the same,at the ram conn. point.

If you conn. a ram,that is mounted on a plane parallel to the water surface.the tiller end of ram piston must rise up & down,as it travels across Ho-Ho. Two problems arise (1) ram is pushing/pulling at a vertical up & down angle in relation to it's att.point @ tiller arm-not the best. (2) When ram extends fully,to push tiller to "far"side,the rod(piston) may touch the tiller arm & certainly will touch top of a quadrant-thereby bending the rod piston.

Best to put a square on rudder stock,extending it's horiz.arm fwd(or aft) & build a ram back end hull mount that is tilted like the rudder stock.

Hope this makes sense & you are good @ "visualizing"-LOL

One more important point(You are fine on this)-never inst a ram on a rudderstock that is not supported by bushing/bearings above the tiller arm/quadrant.It will make stuffing box leak & or break it.
Cheers / Len

[antoha]

Mark - i don't control this. which turns more (the rose joint or the rod) is a function of where you have more friction. the LS unit i have (it's the biggest they have, the 50ST20, which is several sizes an overkill but i bought it on ebay and there's not much choice there; you probably have a 40ST16) seems to have a very stiff rose joint, while the rod itself is not constrained and turns rather smoothly. also the friction in the rose joint is "dry" (meaning it takes more effort to get it started, but then it jumps relatively easily) while the friction in the rod is all "wet" (which makes sense, the ram is hydraulic and is built to minimize friction as it moves in and out, and around the axis is a byproduct of that motion).

Len - thank you, makes sense; you want the ram to be only pushing and pulling the pin, and not trying to be sliding the rose joint off of it (any force along the pin would be doing just that). the other point (about the rod hitting the quadrant itself due to this kind of play) is less of an issue for my installation: the LS cylinder is very big (much bigger than the b&g type 1 that i have as my backup for now), so the cylinder itself will hit the quadrant when the rod moves in before the rod does - so i had to make the attachment point on the pin high enough (about 40mm, which is the size of 4 M12 hex nuts or one M12 coupling nut).

the problem with "measuring things right" is that i'm always doing boat projects by myself, and i only have so many hands and my arms are only so long - and all these geometries on these old boats are curvy and space is tight (my under-the-cockpit crawl space around the quadrant is maybe 20" tall). excuses excuses, i know, but very often it's hard to hold it and see if it is actually fitting well, at the same time when done by one and the same person. i'm sure that if you've done it many times before you may have various helper setups for such tasks, but this isn't my case. i'm learning though...

thanks again!
Anton

Anton.

[antoha]

Mark, sorry - i actually don't know what ram you have. i confused you with Cotemar on this forum, apologies to both (he's also Mark and also has a cat; his autopilot is a LS). i was just trying to say that the LS 50ST20 is way oversized for our boat (type 1 drive would have been enough for us, and this is type 3 - in raymarine classification for example), but bigger is probably better/safer, in this case; i don't think it should affect power consumption.

i did install it at about 15-20% smaller distance to rudder stock than recommended "just to be on the safe side" (to make absolutely sure the ram is not what's limiting the rudder throw) - this will result in as much of a loss of torque, but i still should have enough.