Raymarine Gyro Sensor Upgrade for $25

[125Miles]

Hi folks! Just ran across this article at portanna.org/tip/153-gyro-raymarine Its all French and the bottom line is that someone figured the way to hook up R/C Heli gyro to raymarine autopilot. The installation is pice of cake – order the chip, solder a couple wires put a little voltage regulator and you have all the nice features of gyro stabilized pilot. Anyone tried this?

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by 125Miles

Hi folks! Just ran across this article at portanna.org/tip/153-gyro-raymarine Its all French and the bottom line is that someone figured the way to hook up R/C Heli gyro to raymarine autopilot. The installation is pice of cake – order the chip, solder a couple wires put a little voltage regulator and you have all the nice features of gyro stabilized pilot. Anyone tried this?

Oh yes and a musical instrument is a length of pipe with a few holes in it, please if you understand electronics then sur, break a leg , otherwise forget it

Dave

[philocat]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Oh yes and a musical instrument is a length of pipe with a few holes in it, please if you understand electronics then sur, break a leg , otherwise forget it

Dave

....and produces nice music too. After running the link thru google translate it seems quite a doable idea so good luck. I am surprised that the gyro input seems to be analogue rather than more common nowadays digital input. If I had the head unit I'd give it a whirl to save 1000Eu ?! too (but taking precautions limiting input voltages initially). I'm plaaning to make my own autopilot when I get time, as I cannot bring myself around to pay the exorbitant prices for marine electronics. Probably similar to a web site - search for SCA or something -it has source code for a 16F628 uchip circuit and interfaces to gps etc.

[125Miles]

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Well, I think ll give this a try and put my outcome here. The only thing is my boat sitting in 3 feet of snow, so no way to test the results till spring. Does anyone know what chip/board used in original upgrade? I found one on eBay that says Kionix Inc on it but thats all about I can see from the picture.

[sailorF54]

Originally Posted by 125Miles

Hi folks! Just ran across this article at portanna.org/tip/153-gyro-raymarine Its all French and the bottom line is that someone figured the way to hook up R/C Heli gyro to raymarine autopilot. The installation is pice of cake – order the chip, solder a couple wires put a little voltage regulator and you have all the nice features of gyro stabilized pilot. Anyone tried this?

I can vouch for what this website reports, and which has been reported on a French forum, although I haven't tried it myself (will probably try this summer)
If you are interested, I can forward a message to the guy who has done it...

[barnakiel]

I remember pre - G models had the upgrade option (I am not sure if it was a chip or a plug-in, but I am sure it existed and probably can still be purchased from Ray) - so I cannot see why one would not be able to do just that, cheaper, given the right toys and tools. Should work ok.

My experience with G models is that given adequate drive they outperform the non-G hands down in anything from moderate to very rough seas. They also consume less, making fewer stupid expeditions from lock to lock while all that was actually necessary was bracing up and let that big wave roll away.

I have been sailing a 38' paper boat recently with tiller and 4000 GP G model from Ray and I must say this model works great. I have also sailed a 46' boat with one of the upper models and it performed very well.

G rules. If you think you can have it without breaking down your unit and the bank, go for it.

barnie

[goboatingnow]

I agree, there are the best price performance ratio pilots around.

Dave

[fulup]

I'm the author of the this article in French, I'm just too lasy to translate it, but if you post comment in English n the web site, I will respond in English.

I confirm that the proposed method works with S1/2/S3 and that the only constrains is to provide 5v to the GPS chipset which requirer a small DC/DC regulator to reduce seatalk 12v to 5v, outside of that everything work out the box.

One the strongest issue for French navigateors to order the GPS in US from Sparkfun website that is 100% English contend, at least this should be be an issue for you guys.

[senormechanico]

The chip data is easily available.

16F628 - Bing

The only other part is a standard 3 tab 5 volt regulator.

What's not to like?

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Oh yes and a musical instrument is a length of pipe with a few holes in it, please if you understand electronics then sur, break a leg , otherwise forget it

Dave

Man was not put on the moon and successfully retrieved without technology which many sailboat people still condemn as being something that "if it hasn't failed it will" which is a fallacy flying in the face of successful facts. By repeating such defeatist anti-technology drivel such people are merely ensconcing themselves in caves amidst a world of wonderful opportunity. Don't deny others with such defeatism who might otherwise benefit from the bigger picture.

[125Miles]

This is my progress so far. I ordered gyro and voltage regulator from Sparkfun and soldered all the things together. Added two caps and ferrule to lower the noise (probably overkill but no bother since I had em laying around anyway). I measured rate output and it reads 3v changing as I turn module in my hands. So far so good. Just waiting for warmer days to test the thing.

[DevoDave]

Will be interested in hearing the result of this.

I upgraded my S1 autopilot to an S1G by pulling the accelerometer out of a Raymarine GyroPlus II RateGyro Processor and installing it into the S1.

So I have a spare RateGyro... if this works I can get it back working and flog it off on ebay.

[amarf]

very interesting reading. There is also an upgrade from raymarine as "build in" kit, looks a lot as the solution described in this tread. just check ebay and search for "raymarine + gyro", it goes for 500 $. If any of you tried this it would be nice with english version of installation.

Regards

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, amarf.

[RecoveringRacer]

Like DevoDave, I took the rate of turn engine out of a GyroPlus II and installed it in a non-gyro S1 Autopilot to make an S1G. There are a mating plug and mounting holes right on the S1 board, so it was a five-minute job, and the 6002 control head recognized the modified autopilot as an S1G.

I bought the GyroPlus II on Ebay for $250 including the compass which I also used, then sold the empty GyroPlus II on Ebay for $60 to a guy for use as a cheapo NMEA to SeaTalk bridge. Net-net, it cost me about $100, if you figure the compass was worth $90. (The dealer wanted $700 for a conversion kit.)