2023-04-23, 11:10 AM
Thank you for this information stelian. I've tried a lot of different configurations using your setup and other info and my LCD screen is definitely blank. But that's not the most critical thing, so I'll put that aside for now.
I've just done two days and one night of sea crossing and I obviously spoke too quickly... this time, my pilot never found the north. I had to manage without him and it was a misery. In my logbook I complained about the IMU not being able to behave like a normal, stable compass. There is a huge contrast between the impeccable operation on the crossing to England and this sailing, which started with a heavy upwind swell, which seems to have thrown everything off. Even when the weather conditions improved afterwards.
I tried a lot of things though. I've restarted the services 50 times, tried to recalibrate the IMU in the open sea, which is difficult with a big swell all the time. Basically, it seems stable when the sea is flat, even if it "turns" a little, then the compass becomes very unstable with the swell, to finish completely crazy.
So I've noticed again that, when the IMU is unusable (and without wind info), either because it's badly calibrated or because it's dead, having a "degraded" mode that pilots only from the GPS data (not affected by completely wrong IMU data), even if the boat makes huge zigzags, is still much better than having to stay at the helm day and night. However, as this situation should never happen, I understand that developing this option is unnecessary.
Now that I'm at anchor I'll take advantage of the stability to recalibrate. Sorry for this pessimistic message and my bad English. To be continued.
I've just done two days and one night of sea crossing and I obviously spoke too quickly... this time, my pilot never found the north. I had to manage without him and it was a misery. In my logbook I complained about the IMU not being able to behave like a normal, stable compass. There is a huge contrast between the impeccable operation on the crossing to England and this sailing, which started with a heavy upwind swell, which seems to have thrown everything off. Even when the weather conditions improved afterwards.
I tried a lot of things though. I've restarted the services 50 times, tried to recalibrate the IMU in the open sea, which is difficult with a big swell all the time. Basically, it seems stable when the sea is flat, even if it "turns" a little, then the compass becomes very unstable with the swell, to finish completely crazy.
So I've noticed again that, when the IMU is unusable (and without wind info), either because it's badly calibrated or because it's dead, having a "degraded" mode that pilots only from the GPS data (not affected by completely wrong IMU data), even if the boat makes huge zigzags, is still much better than having to stay at the helm day and night. However, as this situation should never happen, I understand that developing this option is unnecessary.
Now that I'm at anchor I'll take advantage of the stability to recalibrate. Sorry for this pessimistic message and my bad English. To be continued.