Somewhere buried in another thread Mr Clarkson mentioned a magnet/whacky compass situation which was an "aha" moment for me.... The PO's choice for compass sensor and Algae-X
So is this too close?
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Somewhere buried in another thread Mr Clarkson mentioned a magnet/whacky compass situation which was an "aha" moment for me.... The PO's choice for compass sensor and Algae-X
So is this too close?
Try a hand held compass and move it around the area and see if/how much it's affected.
Is that the AP compass in the bottom of the pic?
That is an excellent comment..DUH on me..... So now I'm Google image searching Garmin depth transducers and autopilot compasses and it appears you are right. Which means I haven't found the compass yet...... It was the "BOW" marking that sent me down the wrong path..... So do I have something "forward looking" here to map the bottom? I know OF that but have never really delved in to it......
Have you run the boat to see if its a problem??? If the AP performs properly why mess with it ??.............
Oh no, there is a problem. On certain headings the compass is 30º off, and with the bow aimed in the right direction telling the autopilot to navigate to a point ahead will result in an immediate turn. Eventually it will figure the drift and start correcting for what it probably thinks is a hellacious cross wind/current but that's no way to operate.
Way I'm currently working it is to aim the boat in the right direction and hit "heading hold and ignore the number. Make small changes to stay on the line. COG is, of course, in the ball park.
It works and I get there just fine, heck when I was a kid all we had was a whiskey compass uphill both ways........
It sounds like you may need to re-calibrate your AP. There is a procedure in the manual for do this.
Mine is currently the same way. Depending on the direction I'm traveling, the AP can be off by up to 15 degrees from my compass heading and/or the COG heading on on my plotter. I've just been compensating by monitoring my track on the chartplotter and tweaking the heading adjustment on the AP as necessary to keep me on course.
Recalibrating the AP has been one of those round-tuit things on my list for a while now.