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Raven displaces 10,000lbs and the X-5 is rated to 16500 so it should be more than capable. She's easy on the helm, with no major vices provided of course sails are properly trimmed. Bit of weather helm in heavy weather if over trimmed but that is to be expected. We don't take the old girl far offshore, just coastal. So although there are beefier below deck units available I just don't see that we need more than X-5 offers and Raymarine has an excellent reputation in Australia (I stress in Australia) for after sales support. The SPX-5 also fits our budget.
Simplicity of use and installation are other perceived factors.
Any thoughts from existing users or users of other models or brands in this price range ?
I highly recommend the X-5 WheelPilot. It was easy to install and configure and it handles my boat nicely (~12,000. lbs disp.) in typical coastal conditions.
Raymarine has the wheelpilot market to themselves at the moment. I had a difficult time coming up with belowdecks setup that would work, so I was glad that this unit worked so well.
Wheel pilots are OK for some boats and are an easy solution for those wanting an autopilot, but even though rated for boats upto 16,500lbs I have replaced them on boats of 9,500 lbs or so like the Hunter 30's where they have failed. The primary cause was the user expecting that they can handle everything as they are rated at twice what their boat weighs. Truth is that a boat not balanced under sail and suffering weather helm will overload the wheel pilot and cause it to fail.
If you plan to cruise and use an autopilot for many hours at a time, install a below deck unit, you will be glad you did....
Comparatively speaking, the newer Raymarine wheel pilot drive assembly is a much better bit of gear than the older (no longer supported) black units. We installed an S-1 recently without issue, including the rudder sensor which is often the biggest hassle. I believe the X-5 uses a gyro unit instead so that issue will not be there for you.
I have had some glitches since: Interfacing with the Garmin via NMEA is interesting. I don't use the feature much, but the 'track' function gets confused by the approximate amount of local variation - I believe the messages back and forth are mixing 'true' and 'magnetic' data.
Another short term glitch recently was the fluxgate/heading indication scrolling in reverse (causing positive feedback and no autohelm capability). A power recycle cleared it and I've not seen it again. I have contacted Raymarine and they replied positively that they would clear it up - though I've yet to get a second follow up.
In this area the (only) other wheel pilot we see is the Simrad - most seem happy with it but it's a very bulky unit compared to RM. Not sure of their current availability.
i love my x-5 ,steers well so far,i havent had it out in too extreme weather but it held a great course in 6ft seas that were trying to knock me a bit sideways
r.furborough...you make good sense but reality is that this boat is going to be used predominantly by us for coastal work and I would be very surprised indeed if we were to ever do more than the odd overnight passage in her. Almost all our intended destinations are within a few days sail and even e.g Tasmania which is a week or so sail from Sydney we would be unlikely to attempt in one hit. Lord Howe Island is three or four days offshore, that is probably the longest passage we will ever make in Raven.
Our old Navico WP5000 has worked quite well for us and previous owners but at 20 years of age it is simply wearing out. The WP is long discontinued and even basic parts such as belts are almost impossible to come by. The Raymarine is a far superior machine to the auto helm and for our intended application is on paper more than adequate.
The Womboat is a quite well balanced old girl, indeed she will steer herself quite well provided she is properly trimmed. As such a wheel pilot is a worthwhile addition probably of more importance when motoring than when under sail.
If , on the other hand, we intended heading offshore for weeks at a time then without doubt I'd go for a below deck unit.
I just installed the X-5 in a 1988 C&C 30 Mk II. I replaced an ST4000 whose drive unit wore out. The X-5 is a much better design using steel ball bearings where the ST4000 used plastic "wheels" that wear out causing the ring drive to bind. Overall, the installation was about what I expected.
Calibration was a bit tricky. I found out that my ship's compass is about 15 degrees off which caused a lot of difficulty in calibration. I ended up calibrating to my chart plotter. If you do this, just make sure the heading on your chart plotter is magnetic not true.
Once calibrated, the performance is much better than the old ST4000 the "auto learn" feature considers the unique characteristics of the rudder. The drive is constantly adjusting but it tracks in a nice straight line even after hitting a large wake.
Mine gave up the ghost first season. Keep in mind it took me to Alaska and back and ran five to fifteen hours at a time for a three month journey. The transmition crapper out as the gearing is all plastic. Fixed under warranty and although I had to deal with the worst customer service of my life its back on the boat and steering true. Avoid using it in following seas, it's just not up to the task. If you break it, dont break it in BC! Good luck.
The biggest problem we had/have had with ours was that it would not accept the compass calibration no matter how many circles we put in. This was driving me to distraction until I just happened to notice that the fluxgate was pointing straight up not fore/aft. Readjust. Sorted.
(Remember Raven is steel so Fluxgate has to be mounted externally, in our case on the solar panel frame. Dumbhead here simply did not notice incorrect positioning. The Fluxgate is mounted on the solar panel/bimini frame and we had a new bimini fitted at the same time we were installing the fluxgate. )
Raymarine customer service is legendarily bad isn't it ? We took a punt and bought our unit through the SailNet shop, in doing so nearly halving the price in Australia. Whether this was a good idea or not is yet to be seen. Had we gone local the installer is responsible for warranty claims. Having bought offshore we would need to go through Raymarine themselves.
FWIW our S-1 course computer crapped out on us late last season. Over the winter I contacted the dealer locally, who put me onto a local repair/warranty shop. The entire computer was replaced without question.
Reinstalled, recalibrated and it's working great. The driving transistors for the drive motor had given up the ghost. There was no mention of component replacement, they simply gave me a new one.. so no major complaints here.... mind you I did not have to deal with Raymarine themselves.
Before I contact Raymarine I was hoping someone has a similar system configuration.
I'm still working out the kinks on the ST6002, with the fluxgate compass, and course computer settings.
I've gone through the setup and sea trial mode a few times and when in auto mode I'm getting off course errors after two or three minutes as I watch the autopilot steer off course. According to Raymarine this is due to sail balancing. I'm getting this even under engine power in light seas...I reset the sensitivity to 2 vs the defaul 5 which seemed to help. I then decided to by the GPS and installed it this past weekend. But I'm confused as to how I'm suppose to know its working.
I get the green "Fix" light but when accessing the ST6002 I'm not able to obtain any information that the GPS is providing signal to the course computer. Of course I've re-checked the sea-talk wiring and don't see any issue there as the instructions are straigt forward. Yellow/Shield to seatalk, on the course computer, red&green to 12v and brown to ground.
There are a number of ways to verify IF a GPS is talking and what it is saying.
Assuming rashly that you have an NMEA-18x connection...and premade wiring and plugs...the first thing is to double-check the GPS options menus to make sure the GPS is set to speak NMEA 18x. (Or whatever the rest of your system is expecting.)
If it is, then the GPS will send a data burst about once per second, and you can see that as a voltage pulse on a voltmeter (set to 10-20V scale) on the output lines. Confirming what the data is, requires hooking up a PDA or computer than can read the serial data to confirm what's actually coming out.
Exactly what do you have, and how is it hooked up?
If you're trying to feed NMEA into RayMarine's proprietary Seatalk bus, that won't work. You'll need an NMEA port or translator first.
HelloSailor,
What I found out today, from Ray Marine, is that I need a chartplotter or device to interface to the GPS 1st. That would have been helpful to know before buying the Raymarine GPS reciever thinking it would automatically feed into the coarse computer similar to the fluxgate. Nope...need to buy another device...any suggestions on a non-supplied GPS Chartplotter would be helpful. I could have saved the $$ and purchased a chartplotter with an integrated GPS receiver if I wuold have known what I learned today.
Thank you, Kaian1
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