I'm looking to put a Auto Pilot on my 20 foot Lund Tyee, what should I be looking at . Raymarine S1000, Raymarine ST6001, Simrads,?????? it's a I/O, any help here would be great ..
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sounds like you are on the rite track . one other that has real good slow speed performance as in trolling with rough windy conditions that also deserves a look . http://www.nautamatic.com/
The Nautamatic is a great system but at around $3,500 the unit Maybe the next boat.. I've found the S1000 for about $980 and the ST6001 add $150 .. of the 2 which one will work better at trolling speeds,, I do like the Idea of a wireless remote on the S1000
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We have the older version of the 6001...the 650...on Team EO. It works great at trolling speeds, but is very voltage sensitive. If you have a poorly-charging battery system, bad battery or bad cables, any voltage drop will cause the 650 to kick into Standby mode.
We had a Raymarine 5000 on the Grady White Sailfish...that was also great at trolling speeds. Personally I prefer the 5000-series control head because you can move in either ±1º or ±10º increments. The 650 control head has a rotary knob to dial-in the amount of course change...not nearly as convenient in my opinion.
I've heard good things about the S1000 for trolling, now that Raymarine has modified it for low-speed operation. If you get one, make sure that it is one that was recently manufactured and includes the low-speed mod. Call Raymarine customer service for more info on the mod.
Tom
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I just went through this decision and decided to go with the ST 6001 S1G. You will note that there are two models of the ST 6001 - S1 and S1G. The S1G is is gyro stabilized and it has AST, an autolearning function is said to dramatically reduce the time to calibrate the unit.
I personally chose the ST 6001 over Simrad because of 1) the cost differential (I was looking at the AP16) and the fact that the rest of my components I bought were Ray, and 2) the autolearning functions.
However, I will note that in my research what I found was that if there is a weak link in the Ray ST 6001 it is the fluxgate compass. Based on that, I also upgraded the compass to a KVH digital compass/heading sensor. This may be overkill as I know of others that have had not issues with the Ray fluxgate, but I decided to do it once and be done with it.
My thoughts on the S1000 is this - rather than taking its course from a traditional fluxgate, it utilizes the heading from your gps. As Tom noted, they have made updates to the software that supposedly improve slow trolling performance,but I simply do not think that you will be pleased with an autopilot that relies on the GPS for heading.
Hope this helps... If you have any additional questions pm me, as I know how difficult this decision is.
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I made a mistake in my post above...the 650 is the older version of the 8001 control head...not the 6001. I see that the 6001 is the new version of the old ST5000 and 5000+ head.
As I said above, I prefer the 6001 style...with pushbuttons rather than the rotary knob.
Sorry for any confusion...
Tom
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After having the SportPilot+ on two boats went with the ST6001 on my current setup. Has been great for two seasons. Works well at both trolling and cruising speeds.
One FYI though, you will need to add $50 to $200 worth of hydraulic hoses, fittings... to any of the hydraulic systems as they don't ship really ready to install out of the box. This stuff is needed to re-plumb it into your current hydraulic steering system. The biggest cost in this will be a return hose to the autopilot pump which should be placed as close to the rudder as possible. The RayMarine gear also needs adapters to use USA fittings instead of the British ones it comes with -- RayMarine is based in England.
Good stuff though. I have mine interfaced to my other electronics and it will follow a GPS course. Also displays the autopilot data on my fishfinder and gps screens (NMEA and SeaTalk interfaces).
Ryan
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Maybe the next boat.. I've found the S1000 for about $980 and the ST6001 add $150 .. of the 2 which one will work better at trolling speeds,, I do like the Idea of a wireless remote on the S1000
