Hi everyone!
I'm on a brand-new Helia we just picked up in La Rochelle, which we're hoping to sail out of here in the next
weather window... if only we could get our
Garmin autopilot to
work.
We've been working on this problem for weeks, since it was installed, and it's been no end to frustration and also incompetence on the part of the company that installed the system.
There have been so many problems simultaneously, in fact, that we're not sure if the
current problem is to do with poor
installation (most likely), the
Garmin system, or both.
I wondered if anyone here had a Garmin
Autopilot installed on their Helia that they either had success with or problem with that sound similar to ours? Here is a run-down of the
current issues:
1) Post-calibration, the autopilot has never held a steady course. It feels like it doesn't quite understand where the bearing is because it heads towards the bearing, veers off the bearing about 30-40 degrees, then heads back to the bearing and veers past it again about 30-40 degrees. So the result is we zig zag our way to any location when the autopilot is on. We expect some play, but not this much.
2) We are getting an error message on our
screen that says "Low GHC supply voltage" -- even though the
batteries are fully charged, and even when the
engine is running. We think the guys who installed it didn't use thick enough wire to keep the system powered.
The guys who installed the system tried to talk us out of going with Garmin, but we had a choice between Garmin and
Raymarine. And we had
Raymarine on our old
boat and had very bad experiences with that autopilot, so we went with Garmin this time instead.
Does anyone have any experiences with Garmin that would tell me that I should go with a completely different autopilot system, or is this just a case of
installation teething problems that you think, once resolved, will mean my system could be reliable?
Thanks for your help /
advice / input. I really appreciate it.