Robertson Auto Pilot Heading divides course by 10!

[Dan Mapes]

Really odd. A couple of days ago, I was running at around 332 degrees and flipped into Auto so it would follow the heading. It loaded up 33.2 as the course to steer and performed a hard turn.
Any ideers besides by a new unit? Today I will be wiggling connectors etc. before we go out later on.

Update:
Sitting at the dock, I can turn it on and set auto mode. If I turn the course dial to port, the drive kicks in and it turns the rudder waiting for the course to change. However, if I turn the course dial to starboard, the course divides by 10, and no action or indication of steering is generated.

Rudder angle indicator is correct as well. I found that if I deflected the rudder to stbd, turned it on auto, it would steer to a neutral rudder. If I turned to port and turned it on, it failed to turn to stbd. No green light nada.

Sounds dead but probably only needs a transistor somewhere.

 

[gbharrington]

Sounds like a course computer issue. Call the Simrad tech line. They are generally very helpful.

 

[Dan Mapes]

At this point, some folks familiar with the unit are saying there is a problem with rudder control and I agree. BUT I believe it is up in the unit that drives the motor, not the motor or rudder indicator. Again the indicator is just fine and still very helpful.
I cannot get the GREEN LED to light up in a manner that is opposite but similar to the manner I can drive the port rudder control. In other words, in auto mode, I can command a port steer rudder, but I cannot command or see indication via the GREEN LED that the unit is driving a starboard rudder.

If there was a reasonably priced command unit and this is indicative of a failure in that unit, I would try it out.

Maybe I'll pull it out and have a look at the circuit board but I'd hate to lose the rudder indicator if I whack that.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

Might be worth just replacing the head with a used unit from ebay. If that doesn't work, you can always resell it. There seems to be quite a market for them.

 

[Dan Mapes]

Re: Robertson Auto Pilot Heading divides course by 10! SOLVED!!!

As it turns out, the CPU was commanding to stbd, but the nav unit was ignoring it. The AP100DL is cabled via a dist center to the N100 which is mounted on the same face plate. I pulled the units out in one piece due to the single face plate, and opened them up.
Nothing obvious no burnt electronic stank.
So I put the back covers back on and reinstalled it.

The freaking thing started behaving at the dock again!

The J11 Connector into the AP100DL is the suspect connector based on the "shake rattle roll" test of various connectors..