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Old 13-09-2021, 14:08   #31
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

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Originally Posted by s/v Jedi View Post
I recommend against the fixed, wired, dedicated control heads for the AP. I have no experience with the wireless remote because I use wifi and the iSailor app to control the AP wirelessly.

I also have my N2K data going into my wifi router via a Yacht Devices ethernet gateway. I have a B&G NAC2, precision 9 heading sensor, rudder angle sensor on N2K feeding into the Zeus 2 for autopilot. I didn't realize there was an app to control the autopilot. I was going to get the WR10 wireless AP controller that works using Bluetooth, but from what you say, I could just use an iPhone with iSailor. Of course, I would have to buy an iphone since I use Android. But I could get an older iphone dedicated to running iSailor. Do you have any thoughts on which model iPhone would work well with iSailor and AP control?
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Old 13-09-2021, 23:53   #32
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

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Originally Posted by Jerry Woodward View Post
I also have my N2K data going into my wifi router via a Yacht Devices ethernet gateway. I have a B&G NAC2, precision 9 heading sensor, rudder angle sensor on N2K feeding into the Zeus 2 for autopilot. I didn't realize there was an app to control the autopilot. I was going to get the WR10 wireless AP controller that works using Bluetooth, but from what you say, I could just use an iPhone with iSailor. Of course, I would have to buy an iphone since I use Android. But I could get an older iphone dedicated to running iSailor. Do you have any thoughts on which model iPhone would work well with iSailor and AP control?
In your case I would get the WR10 controller. There are too many weaknesses to AP control from iSailor to give it an important role other than for backup in case your plotter fails.

The main use for iSailor is to have a plotter on your wrist (use a wristband for smartphones). I’m sure there are similar software options for Android.

The remarks people make about power consumption are irrelevant because they experienced that while using the internal GPS in the phone or tablet. When you stream your NMEA over wifi you don’t do that as you get your position over wifi and don’t need the internal GPS (available for backup though).
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Old 14-09-2021, 01:29   #33
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

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I was going to get the WR10 wireless AP controller that works using Bluetooth
For anyone contemplating purchasing one of the WR10 wireless handsets, here is some user feedback:

On our boat it is used as the primary control method. Part of the reason is because the pilothouse provides a great view so we can be altering course from either inside or outside and when this is combined with sometimes sitting on the port side, sometimes starboard and sometimes standing up, there are just too many possibilities to be within easy reach of a fixed control pad. Autopilot controls permanently around our necks makes more sense. On many boats with a more fixed watchkeeping position this will not apply so a fixed autopilot control may be a better option.

I was comcerned about the bluetooth range and reliability, but even on an aluminium boat this has never been an issue with all commands received.

You can buy multiple handsets separately to the bluetooth station, and it is worth having a handset for each crew member. They can be used together (I am not sure of the maximum number) without any conflict or need to reregister with the base unit once the initial commissioning has been done.

So overall a great solution, my only word of warning is handsets come with Duracell batteries (the base unit is powered by the NMEA network). Unfortunately, this brand of battery seems very prone to leaking. I made a mental note to change ours for a different brand, but by the time I got around to the task they had already leaked in one handset, fortunately not badly enough to do significant damage, but it was annoying on a unit only a few months old. I would suggest not using the supplied batteries. Also be aware that if an off watch crewmember accidently presses a button, the autopilot will respond. It is a good idea to remove the handset when not in use. You don't want a crew member to be checking the engine oil or simply rolling over in their sleep and disengaging the autopilot .
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Old 14-09-2021, 01:36   #34
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

It took me 2 weeks past the warranty period to discover the original Duracell had leaked destroying the WR10

B&G agent replaced it under warranty from existing stock - same day service.

B&G autopilot cannot be controlled from an iPhone or Android.
The app (link) allows all functionality of the Zeus except autopilot.
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Old 14-09-2021, 03:18   #35
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

I checked the batteries in my WR10 and it was "Procells" so they seem to have changed supplier. They looked good but they are only a little more than one year old.
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Old 14-09-2021, 03:26   #36
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

Do they use AA or AAA batteries? If so then I recommend to use Eneloop rechargeable batteries. Those won’t leak and for that reason are often used in expensive gear like photography flash units etc.

We switched everything to Eneloop after a leaking battery destroyed a $80 flashlight.
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Old 17-09-2021, 07:13   #37
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

If possible, do a functional check how waypoint navigation works.
Background:
I had a TP20 tiller pilot on my boat. I could enter a waypoint on the chart plotter, and when I enabled waypoint navigation. It went from there to the waypoint. That is what I expect by the way.


As this thing broke I installed a Raymarine Autopilot. When I was still in the harbour I entered a waypoint, and out on the water I enabled wpt navigation....with the result that the boat made a hard 90° turn towards the land. WTF?


Its the philosophy of Raymarine, that wpt navigation should first of all minimize the crosstrack-error (XTE). If you are using a Raymarine Plotter as well, you may reset the XTE, still resulting in a smaller shift to left or right (good fun while you are sailing!).


IMO this is defective by design. Tried to discuss this with Raymarine, but customer input is not something they consider if one questions their wisdom. So one thing is clear - my next autopilot will not come from Raymarine

Dunno how B&G deals with this....but you should check
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Old 17-09-2021, 07:15   #38
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

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Originally Posted by Makr0 View Post
Hey Folks

I am in the process of buying a boat that comes with newer B&G gear from 2019. It has a zeus 3 plotter, 4g radar and a wind instrument.

I can’t quite figure out what components I need to setup a fully compatible autopilot...

Do I need all the things or just the ram and the computer?

Any help is appreciated.
I have a B&G H5000 autopilot, and it is fantastic. To use that unit, you will need:

An H5000 pilot computer
An H5000 pilot controller keypad
NMEA2000 GPS data on the network
NMEA2000 speed data on the network
NMEA2000 wind data on the network - for tack&gybe, wind response feature
A rudder feedback unit, wired or NMEA2000
NMEA2000 Heading and rate of turn motion data

A few interesting notes:

You can in theory use a B&G MFD as the pilot controller, but in practice you will want if not need need a physical H5000 controller keypad. I had trouble configuring my H5000 with just my B&G MFD, and even that has since been fixed by an MFD software update, not having a dedicated button to quickly disable the pilot would be scary.

If you use NMEA2000 for any of your GPS, Speed, Wind, Heading, Rudder and/or Rate of Turn data, that data does not need to come from B&G brand equipment!
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Old 17-09-2021, 08:24   #39
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

I had a new sail boat in 2019 & 2020 that had an all B&G electronics system; Zeus 3, NAC-3, Triton controls, Bluetooth fob controller, rudder sensor, VHF, radar, forward sonar, etc, on NMEA 2000 and ethernet highways. We used the boat for a year of liveaboard US East Coast and Bahama sailing. Overall the system worked well after the bugs were worked out - but there are some watchouts that we experienced. The first piece of advice is to make sure that the system software is routinely kept up to date. We had a situation where the system would randomly put the auto pilot into standby for no apparent reason while underway. Thus on long passages you could never step away from the helm for fear that the thing would create havoc at any moment. After pulling into a marina and calling B&G in New Hampshire, the fix was to update the software for the AP and also for the VHF radio. This is troublesome when you do not have a reliable and fast internet to download many MB's for these updates. The second issue we ran into once for maybe a few days is that the rudder hardware sensor connection to the AP was somehow dropped (via software) and the system was using B&G's Virtual Rudder Feedback "feature" which is some algorithm that tries to predict/guess where the rudder is based on other input information. We did not know that the system was running VRF, but the we noted that the control was terrible and the AP struggled mightly to track a course. If you have really good eyes or a magnifying glass, you can spy a little "VRF" icon on the bottom of the Zeus 3 MFD - that was our clue that something had changed. Then it was time to search through manuals to find out what VRF means and then how to turn it off. Supposedly VRF is not available if the NAC3 is configured as "Sail" but somehow we managed to override that - could not tell how we got into that situation - all I can say is it took a lot of work to figure out the complexities of the software. The last thing is the Bluetooth fob controller - on our boat it would sometimes drop the connection - then it needed to be re-paired and this required that you turn off the electronics and then back on to reset the system. Then you have something like 30 seconds or less to re-pair it using some combination of key press holds on the fob. Everytime this happened you had to pull out the little Let's Get Started help card to see again - what keys do I press, in what order, for how long. Needless to say, this was a hassle, especially while underway on the Atlantic.
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Old 17-09-2021, 14:07   #40
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

B&G zeus2, Gofree, AP12, Airmar GH2183, RF25N rudder sensor, Tritons, hard wired pilot, WR10 remote, no problems with any of it last five yrs.
GoFree WiFi is a bit hit and miss but rarely use it anyways.
Complete backup, to negate Murphy. (Law)
I'm somewhat less reliable than AP.
AP's Definitely deficient in conversation though.
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Old 18-09-2021, 08:32   #41
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

Don't forget the tiller arm.
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Old 19-09-2021, 13:46   #42
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

Quote:
Originally Posted by COOGOR View Post
As this thing broke I installed a Raymarine Autopilot. When I was still in the harbour I entered a waypoint, and out on the water I enabled wpt navigation....with the result that the boat made a hard 90° turn towards the land. WTF?


Its the philosophy of Raymarine, that wpt navigation should first of all minimize the crosstrack-error (XTE). If you are using a Raymarine Plotter as well, you may reset the XTE, still resulting in a smaller shift to left or right (good fun while you are sailing!).
This happened to you because it took a long time (distance) between activating navigation on your chartplotter and activating Track / Nav mode on the pilot. (The value of XTE was already very large).
The XTE is a data used by all pilots for a long time and is calculated by the plotter establishing the classic graphic highway between point of origin and destination.

I believe that the XTE calculation should always be performed by the AP itself, taking the coordinates of the destination waypoint indicated by the plotter, but calculated from the position where the pilot's own Track mode is activated. It would be equivalent to what Raymarine does with the reset of XTE, but before you have already given the scare ...

This is a matter of discussion, if we take as an alternative the tracking of the BRG (Bearing to waypoint) of the plotter, making the pilot equal the COG to that value. It appears that this method is less accurate than using XTE when the distance to the destination is large.
(I don't know how Simrad and B&G solve it either)
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Old 19-09-2021, 16:37   #43
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

In my friend's case, they programmed their newly installed Raymarine autopilot to follow a route. One of the waypoints had an input error and required an almost 180 degree turn. The autopilot tried so hard to make the turn that it destroyed the linear drive. The manual said that the rate of turn was limited to 3 degrees a second, but marketing never told the engineers
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Old 19-09-2021, 17:15   #44
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

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Originally Posted by shockleysprings View Post
Don't forget the tiller arm.
I figured with the way I built tiller arm I probably would lose the rudder first.
I have a spare pin though.
Where do you stop on backups?

On destroying a drive, I am pretty sure I programmed my Navico AP/ linear drive with an electronic stop before the physical one. Do RM not have this facility?
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Old 27-09-2021, 12:48   #45
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Re: B&G auto Pilot?

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Originally Posted by jshukis View Post
I have a B&G H5000 autopilot, and it is fantastic. To use that unit, you will need:

An H5000 pilot computer
An H5000 pilot controller keypad
NMEA2000 GPS data on the network
NMEA2000 speed data on the network
NMEA2000 wind data on the network - for tack&gybe, wind response feature
A rudder feedback unit, wired or NMEA2000
NMEA2000 Heading and rate of turn motion data

A few interesting notes:

You can in theory use a B&G MFD as the pilot controller, but in practice you will want if not need need a physical H5000 controller keypad. I had trouble configuring my H5000 with just my B&G MFD, and even that has since been fixed by an MFD software update, not having a dedicated button to quickly disable the pilot would be scary.

If you use NMEA2000 for any of your GPS, Speed, Wind, Heading, Rudder and/or Rate of Turn data, that data does not need to come from B&G brand equipment!
I currently have a NAC-2 with Zeus 3S and all the latest B&G sensors for autopilot control. I find it "good" but a little slow to react, especially when I have it set to maintain wind angle. I've been thinking about upgrading to the H5000, which for me I think would just be swapping the NAC-2 with H5000 CPU and the Triton remote for the H5000 remote. Any experience or thoughts on the improvement one could expect with H5000?
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