Raymarine EVO 100 or Garmin 40 Autopilot

[Squanderbucks]

Yes with either NMEA 0183 or NMEA 2000 the Raymarine will work with the Garmin chartplotters to navigate to Waypoints or follow routes. And that is all many people ask of their combinations. however, Garmin MFD's will do a little more as far as integration with their autopilots and perform some more minor autopilot controls or display some of the settings on screen. But I doubt these are really of much interest to most people and even less so on a sailing vessel. Just set the Route or Waypoint desired on the chartplotter and the rest is done or controlled on the Autopilot control head display. If they are all integrated sometimes you can doo all the control from just the chartplotter.

My powerboat has the EVO 150 and multiple Garmin Chartplotters as well as PC with Open CPN which all "speak" to the autopilot. I believe it is more important to stay with one brand when trying to integrate things like radar and chartplotters because of they require very specific wiring and software protocols that are proprietary while autopilots only need NMEA data.

[TheWindsurfer]

Originally Posted by Apollo366

I have a Hunter 37C, tried a wheel pilot first, it worked fine in the ICW, hardly kept a course on the open ocean, and wore out toothed belts regularly.

I now have a RM EV400 with the electric actuator, no problems in sailing 1,200+ miles and keeps course very well and low current drain (solar panels keep up with it very nicely).

It also talks very nicely with a Garmin 74 series chart plotter via NMEA 2000.

Just my experiences,

Capt Wayne

What version of wheel pilot did u have? What actuator did u use for below deck? Why 400 over 200? For bigger actuator? How was the install?

[Apollo366]

The Wheel pilot was EV-100 Wheel,

The EV 400 was chosen by my mechanic as he has one fitted on his Cat 36 and found it appropriate, I agree with him that oversize is a better way to go. Install was straight forward and no serious probs encountered. Only hard part was drilling the hole in the rudder post while it was in place.

[TheWindsurfer]

Rotary? Or linear drive?

2nd question for anyone: is there a tack button on the raymarine? I.e. a one button press that will turn the boat a user specified number of degrees (or perhaps better wind specified)

Or do u have to push the plus 10 button five times or something like that whennever u want to tack?

[Jfloyd85]

I recently upgraded an old ST4000+ system to the Evo100. Granted I only have a 7000lb 28’ but it’s pretty awesome for me. I reused my original wheel drive unit, which is alleged to be superior to its replacement, it’s near silent for me. The combination has proved to be pretty excellent for me. I sail solo most of the time and short handed the rest. It allows me to completely hand over the helm when running the spinnaker. I can set it with the windvane, and off we go. Dousing is a piece of cake, I didn’t trust my old AP enough to use it under spin.

To tack with the raymarine you just press the 1 and 10 buttons simultaneously in the direction of tack. When set to windvane mode it tacks to the same apparent wind angle.

[George_SD]

I just installed Evolution100 Wheel pilot on a 32ft Beneteau. Seems to be working OK so far, but I still have to add the sensor (my last piece of the install). It is a bit noisy, but not a huge deal. At least i can hear how much it's working, which is kind of nice in case you care if it is working really hard.

Install is easy. The hardest part is running the cables. There is no dedicated button called tack, but if you press +1 and +10 or -1 and -10, this will send the command to tack.

[TheWindsurfer]

Thanks. Which sensor? Rudder?

[George_SD]

Originally Posted by TheWindsurfer

Thanks. Which sensor? Rudder?

Correct. I bought it separately (doesn't come in a kit) after the autopilot was installed.

I also looked around for the best pilot options for my boat and use (coastal, no space for ram at quadrant, price). Evolution was a clear winner. The only thing I did differently from many is that I've also replaced my chart-plotter with a new Raymarine unit. Old one was functional, but too big and poorly installed, so needed to be replaced anyway. But what swayed me to go with Raymarine vs B&G/Simrad was that in order to update autopilot hardware, a raymarine MFD is needed. It can also fully control the AP via SeatalkNG/NMEA2000 network