26X raymarine st-2000

[Dguy]

Would it be posibble to simply hook up a st-2000 tiller autopilot to the steering arm in the transom, which is shorter (closer to the rudder vertical axis) the the 18” as prescibed by raymarine.
It is a cheaper option, as well as avoiding the task of removing the steering wheel on my 2002 26X. Steering wheel hooked up to a 50 hp outboard is very light turning full deflection left or right. I do not want to have the autohelm installed under the cockpit.

[Starscream]

THIS!!!!
I want to do thìs too.

Bump.

Anyone know?

[Seapup]

http://www.macgregorsailors.com/forum/v ... a62170e09d

[Inquisitor]

I'm interested in this also. However an M doesn't have quite the room back there. Also I've read if you know how to wire it in, you can control it via NEMA 2000 using a chart plotter so you don't have to stand on your head to fiddle with the buttons on it down there.

[Starscream]

Doesn't look like the Simrad TP-22 is easily available any more. It's listed at $806 USD on the Simrad website, but no other suppliers.

The ST-1000 is available locally for $599 CDN and the ST-2000 is only $729 CDN.

Tempting to pull the trigger on the ST-1000 and try to jury-rig it somehow, but sure would be nice to see someone had already done it.

[Dguy]

Thank You for the link and pictures. So from what I understand is that the shorter arm (distance ) to the rudder will be compensated by the autopilot, since otherwise full deflection ( extension) autopilot arm will result in greater ( maybe pushing against the stops) rudder-deflection. In the literature fom raymarine I do not find anything on progamming max extension/retraction of the autopilot arm. Also a shorter arm ,I suppose would result in more aggressive track/heading corrections.

[Inquisitor]

Thank You for the link and pictures. So from what I understand is that the shorter arm (distance ) to the rudder will be compensated by the autopilot, since otherwise full deflection ( extension) autopilot arm will result in greater ( maybe pushing against the stops) rudder-deflection. In the literature fom raymarine I do not find anything on progamming max extension/retraction of the autopilot arm. Also a shorter arm ,I suppose would result in more aggressive track/heading corrections.

As I was also interested, I downloaded the manual. I do not think it is that simple.

• I agree that it will compensate... BUT
• It wants you to put it on 18" from the axis of the rudder. If you are just putting it on the cross member between the two arms for the rudders, you are only offsetting it by the arm lengths of your rudders. I'm not familiar with the X, but the M's are not that long. I haven't measured them either as I knew this would be a problem. Let's say they are only 6" (for round numbers) then that means the tiller pilot will need to push 18/6 = 3 times harder than if they were on the desired 18".
• Also because of the difference in moment-arm, you will be using 1/3 the travel. Which means you are using 1/3 of the digital resolution that the device wants to use. It will be far less accurate and be more jittery. Whether it will be noticeable would depend on the computer used... 8, 16, 32bit.

Just saying... it may work, but it will put far more wear on the tiller.

Now if you are very critical about balancing your rudders (at least you can balance the rudders on the M) then all this might not be an issue. But the more you balance the rudders, the less "feel" you'll have in the steering.

Don't want to be negative, as I plan on trying to make it work on my M... but I'll try to find an 18" solution as the product requires.