2024-02-21, 08:39 PM
Hi everyone!
I was reading through the forum but didn't see anything about this. Sorry if it's been discussed already. It seems that most of the users of pypilot are using sailboats and it's easy to manually disengage the AP actuator.
My situation is as follows:
I have a trawler boat that weighs about 2500kg and it currently has Raymarine wheelpilot that has gear drive that is broken in a way that when I put the AP on standby, the manual steering is so heavy that I need to really put my weight on the wheel to be able to steer the boat. This is a common issue with the Raymarine model and they sell updated replacement part for it but that costs over 800€ so not really interested in that.
So my question is, how you have managed to disengage the actuator or what kind of system you have built if it's in a position that is not "easily accessible"? I would like to replace the Raymarine pilot with pypilot and add actuator directly to the tiller that is located in the back cabin. I can access this but it is not the best solution to jump from cockpit to the back cabin and unscrew the actuator every time I want to manually steer the boat. And my boat has cable steering.
I could of course build some belt drive directly to the wheel but I would much rather go with the actuator, it's more reliable, quieter and keeps the cockpit clutter free when the steering gear is hidden in the back cabin.
I was reading through the forum but didn't see anything about this. Sorry if it's been discussed already. It seems that most of the users of pypilot are using sailboats and it's easy to manually disengage the AP actuator.
My situation is as follows:
I have a trawler boat that weighs about 2500kg and it currently has Raymarine wheelpilot that has gear drive that is broken in a way that when I put the AP on standby, the manual steering is so heavy that I need to really put my weight on the wheel to be able to steer the boat. This is a common issue with the Raymarine model and they sell updated replacement part for it but that costs over 800€ so not really interested in that.
So my question is, how you have managed to disengage the actuator or what kind of system you have built if it's in a position that is not "easily accessible"? I would like to replace the Raymarine pilot with pypilot and add actuator directly to the tiller that is located in the back cabin. I can access this but it is not the best solution to jump from cockpit to the back cabin and unscrew the actuator every time I want to manually steer the boat. And my boat has cable steering.
I could of course build some belt drive directly to the wheel but I would much rather go with the actuator, it's more reliable, quieter and keeps the cockpit clutter free when the steering gear is hidden in the back cabin.