Raymarine Evolution A/P on my 34 sailboat

[night mission]

Seeking advise regarding my replacement project of my Auto-helm 4000 with the (new and improved) Evolution from Raymarine. I have bought the wheel drive system, similar to the old system and would consider making it smarter than the heading only system of the pervious Auto-helm. Out of the box from Ray, the system includes the wheel drive, EV-1 (heading info), ACU-100 (controller and brains), new control head and cables. What it doesn't include (and strongly suggested by RM) is a rudder reference transducer nor any way to interface with either, wind, speed or plotter.

My legacy instruments are ST60+ Wind and Tridata, plus a C series plotter at the helm. I'm not totally sure the ST60+ will even work without even more add ons to talk to the ACU-100. The Evolution install guides suggest Raymarine rudder transducer and an iTC-5 (their part number) to interface with wind and speed. These two bits, not included in the original buy add about 50% to the coast of the refit. One or the other, or both could be added.

I was ok with the basic heading system but could be convinced to buy either or both of these add-on if it really makes a meanfull difference to the performance of my new system. The old system would sometimes hunt, making S turns trying to figure out the proper solution to the requested heading. I assume the EV-1 head will solve that problem, but I have never had any other input. It would be nice to include the C-80, but I can live without it. My boating is all coastal and allowing me the freedom to not steer had been my only real wish for an A/P.

Your thoughts

[Geitz]

When we bought our '99 Jeanneau 36.2 in 2015 it had the same Autohelm. Ours would occasionally change course unexpectedly, so we replaced it with the Raymarine EV-1 with ACU-100 and P70 control, without any connection to the other old instruments. It worked nicely and never veered off course.


The next season I replaced the old radar, wind, depth, etc with a B&G Zeus2, 3g radar and an extra Triton display (the price was so good I didn't care about matching it up to Raymarine). Everything is connected to the NMEA2000 network and the auto-pilot will steer to a wind angle or waypoint it gets from the Zeus2, however I cannot control the autopilot from the Zeus itself. I didn't add the rudder angle sensor, but there are times when it would be nice.



Mike

[Hartleyg]

Hi Night mission,


I think you would do well to consider building a NMEA2000 (N2K) network which would allow you to integrate newer equipment like the EVO autopilot. Ray makes a Seatalk - N2K interface (Ray # E22158), though it uses Ray's STng connectors (compatible with the EVO, but requires adapter cables for "regular" N2K stuff).

Regarding the rudder angle sensor, I highly recommend one - they're not all that expensive, and knowing where your rudder is (without having to turn the wheel to the stops) is very useful info in many situations. Our Ray AP control shows rudder position at all times, whether the AP is engaged or not.


A good source for boat networking discussions is: www.Panbo.com



Hartley
S/V Atsa

[night mission]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've decided to add the rudder transducer but hold off on integrating with the wind, speed and plotter. I am finding that Ray's supplied cables are not going to get the job done, so much for an out of the box auto-pilot! Hopefully running cables through my Sabre's helm and through the engine area won't be too painful/probmatic, wishful thinking I'm sure!

[mikedefieslife]

I did without the rudder position sensor for a while. I found the pilot would hunt a little bit, but still held a reasonable course. I later installed the rudder sensor, and found it made a big difference.

The rudder sensors are all much of a muchness. So you don't need a dedicated raymarine one so long as it puts out the right resistance. The offical Raymarine one that came in my pack was too long to fit in the space I had, so I just used my old Cetrek one.