TOPIC:

Hello!
I've been working on a project for 2.5 years now. The boat I bought in 2020 came with a Raymarine Smartpilot X5-R but after I paid for it I was told that this unit was really hard to turn by hand so he disconnected it. Well I've spent 2.5 years trying to understand the problem, find someone to fix it, see if I could buy new parts only to find out these units are absolute and no new parts are available. I've called all over the United States and the UK but never found any new parts.

I spoke with a Raymarine tech that did nothing except Raymarine Autopilots and he and at least another 10 places that use to service and repair these units told me that the spring was bad.

Well, found a guy on Facebook who had a unit but he said it has a bad wormgear so I asked if the spring was ok and he said yes and that it turned fine on his boat so I bought his unit. Got it and it has the same problem as mine and 99% of every other one that was ever made. 

So a while ago I happened to find a new wormgear with spring and new clutch in Denmark so I bought it! WooHoo!

I went to install it but the wormgear doesn't fit the older units housing and the clutch doesn't fit the older wormgear but the spring does.

So I've been working with a spring company to make some new springs for these unit plus I have another part that I'm going to try as well to improve the manual steering.

I'm bbuilding a bench test jig so I can test these units before I change anything and then after making the changes as well as test the autopilot drive while powered up.

I'm fairly confident that based on conversations with Raymarine tech and other techs and repair shops that the new spring will fix the problem and the other part will make it last longer and preform better.

Now to the point of all this!  Does anyone in our group or friends have any interest in getting their unit repaired? The spring and other part will be less than $100 00.

Removing the spring is a little difficult but putting the spring back in is definitely challenging but I came up with a little jig that I used to put the spring back in.

I'm ordering springs next week and trying to see if others have any interest? I dont expect anyone to commit to anything until I've installed the new spring and other part but just knowing that others would be interested if everything works as it should. 

Raymarine made the Smartpilot from 2012 until 2017 from what I was told.

Please let me know. 

I'm moving forward anyway but if I get enough response I'll increase the size of my order.

I posted something very similar to this on Raymarine unofficial Facebook page. I'm also going to post on Ebay and Facebook sale pages.

Wont be long and we'll have our boat back in the water!

Tight lines and good fishing! 


 

Knowing full well that this is this units Achilles heal, you can count me in for one just to put on my shelf.

Will do! Thank you and have a blessed and wonderful day!

I had this unit on the Lund that I recently sold and it worked great.  It did however make the steering very stiff when not in use.  I sent it back to Raymarine twice and it would be good for a little while then ultimately get very tough so steer.  So here is what I did.

I made the wire that is hard wired to the computer a quick disconnect.  Then you can pull the pin on the tilt hinge and steer the boat with the actuator not connected to the bracket or power.  I used some Velcro and an electric plug to hold the wire and bracket out of the way and it worked great.  I sold the boat so I don’t have any pictures but you basically connect the wire and put the pin in the bracket to have auto pilot.  To run back you disconnect the wire and pull the pin.  The unit will then rotate with the steering wheel so it is out of play.  

hopefully this makes sense.

Go to Big Lake Little Boat YouTube feed and look for the Hoosier Coho Club youth tournament video. At around 7 min I connect the auto pilot with a half asked description and some video.

I just watched the part of the video where your autopilot gets hard to turn and where Raymarine autopilot tech told me the same thing as they told you! Just make sure I have plenty of power cord and remove the pin from the bracket and let the autopilot turn with the steering wheel. That was the only advise the tech could give me!

That's not good enough for me! These units worked for a period of time before the spring broke or the end of the spring that's bent on each end so the clutch will make contact have bent which doesn't allow the spring to open enough to release the spring for the center hub of the wormgear that the spring fits on. When either one or both of these defects happen then these units become very hard to turn by hand when you disengage the autopilot.

The newer units have different springs that are made with different material and some of these units are still going strong!

I do know that this spring is a type of stainless steel and once its formed must be heat treated for a minimum of 30 minutes at a specific temperature to release some of the stress that's created in the spring when its formed. If you dont heat treat them or rush the heat treat process this spring will break. If you leave it in the heat treat process to long it will soften the material and allow the ends that are bent to bend out of position thus causing the spring not to function properly.

The new spring i have is for the latest revision for this spring so I'm confident we'll get this figured out.

I'm also going to experiment with teflon sheet that will wrap around the hub and the spring will grip on this. It may be to slippery but I wont know until I try it. I'm a journeyman machinist by trade since 1980 and I've supervised machine shop and maintenance for most of my career. I enjoy trying to come up with a fix/correction that prevents the same problem or failure from happening time after time. My boss that hired me in 1980 to work on the bench in the toolroom/machine shop and a year later promoted me to Supervisor at age 24 told me, if it breaks once fix it, if it breaks twice start looking for the reason and if it breaks a third time implement a repair to prevent it from breaking again. That's what I did for the 43 years I was working. I enjoy the challenge.

From what I gathered from talking with the Raymarine tech and all the other repair shops is that when Raymarine decided to sell they stopped doing a lot of the service that they had been doing and just stopped having parts made.

Well, we are going to see if we can fix this problem and I think we can!

That's how my unit was set up on the boat I purchased but I didn't like the autopilot swinging around so I removed it. Now working on a fix for it!Thank you for the information, I'll keep that in mind if the new spring does work. Thanks again!

The power cord os very simple with a black and red 16ga wire inside.  I just cut the cord a few inches beyond the coils and put a MSD ignition two wire water tight connection.  It was very painless.  I know you are frustrated with it as was I.  I made the unit a quick disconnect per the recommendation from Raymarine and used it for 8 years hours on end.  It worked great and I didn’t have the stiff steering to deal with when trying to dock in windy conditions.  Moving spots on the lake I didn’t disconnect the system and the tight steering wasn’t much of an issue.

I wish you all the luck in the world with the spring idea.  But if it were that simple I would think Raymarine would have made that adjustment from a warranty standpoint on my second try.  They discontinued the unit so it f the spring idea damages clutches or something else you may find yourself without a viable autopilot.  It takes less than a minute to hook up / disconnect the quick connect.  It worked great for me and we fished a lot!

Thanks again for your information. I know you can do exactly what you said and if it comes down to it I'll do exactly what you just said.

I've already spent hours of time doing research and money on different things to try so I'm going to give this project my all. For me it's the challenge to solve the problem. Like I said in my last reply, Raymarine made changes to the wormgear hub, the spring and the clutch. I have a brand new wormgear with spring and clutch assembly that I could modify to fit my housing but then I or no one else, so taking the time to have everything drawn up, having spring material tested to verify the composition and hardness and drawing up the clutch then I'll have a set of prints that can be used to repair these units. I know there are thousands out their because they were sold all over the world.

I'll keep you and everyone else updated as things progress.

Thanks again for your advice! Its greatly appreciated.

I hope that works out and helps many others as well.  Other than the stiff steering it worked great so hopefully you are on to something.  Good luck!