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hi everyone

jeff cote here with votingtechtalk.com

so what do we have in front of us uh

today we're going to be talking about a

raymarine

evolution autopilot or system pack

because it involves a bunch of things

and that's why they call it a pack

raymarine is been doing these sort of

wheel autopilots they go up to about um

you know this is for a fully loaded

vessel

about to about 16 500 pounds of

displacement

so it's not a solution for all boats and

let's

give a little bit of context when we're

thinking about autopilots there's

different drive systems right so

generally most boats will have hydraulic

pumps sailboats

are generally going to either have a

linear drive system

something actually moving on a tiller

arm

on the rudder stock or alternatively for

boats that have a less displacement

you're going to be able to maybe

consider a wheel pilot some boats even

have tiller pilots

there's different other types of drive

systems some

use a chain but here today we are

talking about the rim marine

wheel pilot system that's been around

for a long time uh we see it a lot of

sailboats will have this

32 33 34 or 30 foot sailboats a lot of

boaters are going to have this

raymarine a big player in the industry

um

and they're probably this product's

probably the number one

most popular product within wheel pilots

and it's definitely a fast mover here at

pacific yacht systems

all right and roton okay so with that

we're gonna get started

first thing you'll notice is it looks

big

it feels sort of it's got a little bit

of weight to it

um there's going to be a lot of

different pieces in this system remember

when you're buying an autopilot

there's a lot of different parts so what

we're going to be talking about today is

we'll actually walk through all of these

different parts

i'm familiar with this because i've

installed quite a few

when i used to be doing work on the

field and so

i'm quite familiar with this product

firsthand and

i'm going to be sharing with you what

you would get if you got one of these

products for your own boat

okay

by the way just letting you know this is

your first time watching one of our

videos we've got over 300 videos on

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and also i have to say you know um our

website has got about 1200 pages

of other stuff just about everything

um sharing is caring i got that from my

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and uh you know it's if you're ever sort

of curious and you've got more questions

or you want to

basically go down the rabbit hole with

me go on our website

and you can see the links below and

there's even a section just on autopilot

and we have sections on the different

things that we specialize in

all right so back to this box so what do

we have in here

um you can see it's well packed there's

a lot of stuff right i mean it's not

just space

okay all right i'm sort of excited

actually all right

okay let's make some space by taking

this box here

um this is the sensor

and we're gonna talk about that once i

get all the boxes out of the bigger box

so this is the sensor for the autopilot

so it knows where it's going

next we're going to be here's the

actually the

control unit that's sort of pretty much

the brain

that's where everything sort of process

and all the decisions are taken

this is the acu we're going to open that

box as well

the next thing here what we have is the

control head

the control head is the interface that's

basically our version of a mouse and a

keyboard for a computer or maybe now the

screen itself this is how you would

interface

with uh the autopilot system

we've got a bunch of cables and this in

this case

uh raymarine uh has proprietary uh

cabling called

c-talk ng it's pretty much based on can

bus which is enemy 2000 but they have

proprietary ends so

if you've got an existing enemy a2000

system that is not raymarine

you're probably going to need to order a

pigtail adapter to go from enemy a2000

to ctalk ng

again same system it's just that

raymarine

came up with their own proprietary enemy

a2000

ends which they call seatalk ng okay

a little bit of packing i'm going to put

that to the side

and lastly what i'm going to be taking

out of the box is the wheel pilot

itself the drive unit okay so

all right so what do we have here

so this is uh what would be actually

installed on your sailboat

at the help i'm going to give you a

little bit of indication

of what this looks like all right

excellent so you can see there's a bunch

of

instructions manuals obviously the

serial numbers you've got to keep those

handy

you've got to keep those handys because

you never know

um and we've got the wheel pilot over

here

and underneath i'm going to go slowly

here

i'm going to show you the different bits

and pieces

what's in that box there you go

so this is actually what

act is installed around or

in front of your helm so

you're going to have a sort of a

pedestal at your helm and you're going

to have a wheel

and this would actually the wheel would

be on this side

and the pedestal would be on this side

and generally what's going to happen is

the motors

most likely this can change as you can

see there's different mounting locations

and this bracket over here is going to

be installed

like this on the pedestal guard and that

what it allows is so that the wheel can

actually

turn and this is the motor here that

drive so you can see it's not a huge

motor and that's why you know this is

not for a 45-foot sailboat

um or even a 40-foot sailboat it's maxed

to 16

500 pounds so even if you're at 16 500

it might not be great and if you're

looking for offshore work or something

like that

this is not what i would recommend i

would definitely recommend a linear

drive but then the price goes

way up it's exponential to go so this is

the wheel drive unit that's actually

what moves

your wheel okay on your sailboat

this is the little piece i was talking

about that is actually installed on the

pedestal

you're gonna have to drill some holes to

actually mount this in the right place

and as we all know measure multiple

times i remember installing this

um wheel pilot on a few boats the first

times

like decade ago and i was nervous and

it's okay to be nervous

it's okay to worry you know worrying is

what makes us do things better

so take your time and measure and

measure measure measure

the other thing too is you can see these

are this little bag of goodies over here

and i'll open it up to give you an

example

they're actually what allows the wheel

to actually be connected

to the wheel drive and so these little

spacers actually are fitted on the wheel

and they're going to allow you to hold

this wheel into place now you're

noticing there's not holes everywhere

because

all of us have different wheels right

not all of us have

six there's different spokes and there's

all these different pre-drilled

configurations that you're going to

drill to the

wheel the number of spokes that you have

at your pedestal

so actually good job on raymarine to

actually think that you know there's

different wheels out there they're all

the same so

this is really handy and what you end up

doing is you end up

mounting these hardware so that the

wheel is properly stuck onto this

so that actually whenever the motor

turns the wheel turns also because if

your wheel is turning

then obviously most of us are a lot of

us have ediston pedestals

that also makes your cable and chain

will actually make the rudder actually

go

port or starboard so that's what that is

the other thing too you'll notice

is you've got another little cable in

here this is actually the drive cable

so this connects to the acu which we're

going to talk about a little bit

and that cable is what it allows current

and it just changes the polarity there's

only two wires coming to this

and you're changing the polarity

changing the direction of the wheel

okay as simple as that so that's

probably going to be routed into your

pedestal

and or into your pedestal guard on my

boat it was installed on the pedestal

guard

and these are little tools they even

give you drill bits allen keys

and everything you need to actually

mount this hardware so very well thought

of

so this is the wheel drive unit all

right

the next part that i want to talk about

is

let's start with the acu

this is where the magic happens this is

where

the algorithm to figure out what's going

on on my boat you know i'm because

remember it's easy

to keep an autopilot going straight on a

boat when the water is calm and flat

that's that's a world in two-dimensional

space right there's not a lot of forces

against us there might be currents but

you're not being thrown around like

following c's

so this is where the magic happens of

about

and they're constantly learning by the

way about what's happening in your boat

and how it should react to keep your

boat

on a steady course or going to a

waypoint

because remember when you're actually

using an autopilot on your boat you can

actually either

use point and click i want to go to this

heading i want to go to this waypoint

or i want to go to a route

so this is the acu okay

acu is the brain

and you can see it's not too big um

also comes with a

enemy a2000 or ctalk ng power adapter

there's some ferrites on here and all

the connections are actually coming

through there you've got to remove these

screws and you can get access to the

connectors right there

so that's basically the acu the mounting

location of that

definitely follow the instructions don't

be a hero and it's not going to be

you're not going to be able to have it

too far from actually

uh the wheel drive unit you know you

can't have your wheel

obviously at your helm and then have

this unit at the bow

because the voltage drop on the power

cable is going to be too much

and it's not it's not going to be your

autopilot system won't be happy

all right next what we're going to talk

about is

the sensor now how does an autopilot

know where

what's happening to your boat in the

past they used to be flexi compass

now we've got these motion sensors

that are looking at the world in a

three-dimensional space

and this device right here is what's

gonna it's basically a modern equivalent

of a flux gate compass but it's

also understands the rate of motion

which is good

and it also understands where your boat

is

oriented in three-dimensional space

which is super

important for following seas when you're

actually going to need the autopilot

most

again comes with some cabling um

a little bit of gaskets and basically

even a mounting bracket right here so

that you can actually mount that

somewhere

the location of this sensor is probably

one of the most important things that

you can do when you're installing that

on your boat

uh read the instructions don't be a hero

and

make sure that there's no interference

or large cabling or

ferrous objects in around this device

because it will

definitely affect where your boat thinks

it's pointing

okay i had an owner once installed we

installed the autopilot on his boat and

later on

uh they moved certain items and they

moved and

spare anchor close to where the sensor

was

and the boat was literally thinking it

was going straight but it was actually

going sideways

so make sure wherever you mount this

that you know where it is some people

even put stickers that it's mounted

there so that you don't forget

and you don't want to have any sort of

interference so that's

the sensor lastly this is something

that's going to look quite familiar

it's the instrument or what is called

the control head that's the device that

allows

your interfacing the autopilot how do

you tell the autopilot to go to a

heading how do i tell the autopilot to

follow

maybe a route or go to a waypoint you do

it through here

not that you can't do it through an mfd

but you can definitely do it through an

instrument and i'm a big fan

of actually having dedicated instruments

for autopilots at all else

so if this was a power boat and we had a

hydraulic system and we had two helms

then i would have two of these control

heads so this control head right here

it looks a lot like an instrument and

it's not a coincidence it's the same

size as those

ubiquitous sort of uh ray marine

instruments that we know from the sd60

that are on a lot of boats

look at the display how nice that is

amazing again it gives that sort of

glass bridge

it does look expensive and makes it look

really polished

and that's how you're gonna go about

interfacing the autopilot

and you'll notice of course there's you

know plus or minus one

for uh heading changes same thing plus

or minus 10

for bigger ones and then again if you

read the manuals there's

tricks on how do you go tacking with

this um

and coming back you can go on standby

right here

standby is really important you want to

disable the autopilot before you grab

the helm

so that's uh basically the control head

for the autopilot

and they're going to be similar control

heads for different types of autopilots

and they're pretty much

all this size you'll notice the

connector is single connector and again

this is the see talk ng

from raymarine we've got the nice little

bezel that comes with it so it makes it

look sharp

and then lastly a little pigtail sort of

enemy

again 2000 but rain rain marine cases a

sea talk ng

so there's more instructions

in this box you can see a little bit

more manuals in here and some warranty

and they even give you

um some fasteners to be able to

fix the control head on a bulkhead or

perhaps a pot of the helm

and again more ferrites over here okay

so basically in a nutshell that's what a

wheel autopilot is and that's where

you're going to get if you get this

evolution autopilot i've had a lot of

clients that are quite happy with it

i would say it's more for coastal

cruisers people that are not planning on

going offshore not to say that people

going offshore can't use this autopilot

but they would use this autopilot in

more calmer seas it's not something that

is heavy duty i remember being on a boat

you know

if you've got huge cheese especially

from behind it's hard for the autopilot

to actually understand

what's going on and it's working really

really hard as we are when we're sailing

a boat

and so it's not for everyone but if

you're looking for a budget autopilot

for a rather small sailboat

that is less than 16 500 pounds of

displacement

this is the choice a good choice for you

so anyways

again post your questions down below

thank you for watching don't forget to

subscribe

and if you've got further questions post

them there also check our website we've

got

lots of articles on autopilots and tips

and tricks

so thanks everyone for watching

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