2024-02-02, 06:52 PM
Is your tiller really offset from your rudder post that much? I've never seen that on a sailboat before. Do you have any photos? Maybe I'm misunderstanding your diagram.
The standard stroke for tiller actuators is ~12" (300mm) at a distance of 18" up the tiller arm, so to have your actuator work as a linkage like you depict here, it seems like it would have to be a very large offset to allow the actuator to be at the midpoint when centered and have room to extend and retract when in operation. Beyond that, by leaving the actuator connected to your steering system all the time, I would be concerned that the constant push/pull on the actuator arm when hand steering in big seas would wear out your bearings very quickly. Finally, those actuator speeds seem on the slow side unless they are very powerful and very close to the rudder post. My tiller actuator is 45mm/sec and 300N by comparison, attached at the 18" distance from pivot on my tiller.
For my money, I'd go with one of the $80 actuators from ebay/aliexpress and build a waterproofing shell around it for placement in the cockpit. Less engineering and fewer points of failure that could affect your baseline ability to steer.
The standard stroke for tiller actuators is ~12" (300mm) at a distance of 18" up the tiller arm, so to have your actuator work as a linkage like you depict here, it seems like it would have to be a very large offset to allow the actuator to be at the midpoint when centered and have room to extend and retract when in operation. Beyond that, by leaving the actuator connected to your steering system all the time, I would be concerned that the constant push/pull on the actuator arm when hand steering in big seas would wear out your bearings very quickly. Finally, those actuator speeds seem on the slow side unless they are very powerful and very close to the rudder post. My tiller actuator is 45mm/sec and 300N by comparison, attached at the 18" distance from pivot on my tiller.
For my money, I'd go with one of the $80 actuators from ebay/aliexpress and build a waterproofing shell around it for placement in the cockpit. Less engineering and fewer points of failure that could affect your baseline ability to steer.