Raymarine ST7000A heading sensor

[Matt]

I am hoping that someone here will know where Sea Ray installs the heading sesor for the autopilot in a 2001 400 DB.
I may have found it under the inboard bunk in the port stateroom.
I would like to check the sensor as my heading reading for the autopilot is 180 degrees off from what the compass and GPS indicate as a course heading.
I have not done the auto correction but I have never run into a autopilot that is 180 degrees off before doing the automatick course correction.

 

[SR400DB]

Yes, it is located under the inboard bunk in the port stateroom. I have an 03 DB that used to have this unit installed. i had the exact same problem. Even after the auto correction and set up proceedures, my unit was ALWAYS unreliable. After 100+ hours of trouble shooting/technicians etc, I swapped it out for the KVH heading sensor and have had 0 problems in 5 years/650 hours

 

[Matt]

Thank you for the reply. Will the KVH sensor plug into the course computer or is there some interface needed?

 

[SR400DB]

The KVH heading sensor has nmea 183 output, I used the existing wiring from the raymarine sensor to the autopilot control box. I used a nmea to seatalk converter and it works just as advertised. You can pm me for my email if you want further info. I did all of the electronics install and am pretty familiar with things

 

[osd9]

Why did you have to convert the NMEA to Seatalk? Doesn't the heading sentence info get broadcast to the rest of the on-board equipment once it's on the bus?

 

[Four Suns]

I have that same autopilot and I am also fed up with the Raymarine heading sensor/fluxgate. It's a piece of crap. If you do a search here on CSR for the word "dangling" with "Four Suns" as the author and look at my posts, you'll see much discussion on this. For example:

http://clubsearay.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2015&highlight=dangling

I have a brand new KVH Autocomp 1000 sitting here in my office but have not installed it yet... the reason for that is that Jim at BOE could not find the KVH mounting bracket for it so I have to fabricate one... bastard.

I believe the autopilot has an input on the computer for the Raymarine Fluxgate and an NMEA heading sensor. I'm just going to hook the KVH to the autopilot at that connection and then tell the autopilot to ignore the Raymarine craptacular fluxgate (I'll pull it out and drag it around behind my car first). The ST 7001 should put that data out on the SeaTalk network then... If you want to put it out on an NMEA network, you just need to put a splitter in place before the computer connection.

Glad to hear the KVH solved this problem with other people. I'm heading to Baltimore this weekend with the old crappy one so I may end up in Miami instead.