Fitting a Raymarine Evolution Wheel Pilot

Hello, on my UK F35 CK, the last of my three Autohelm 3000 pilots has finally given up so I’m forced to replace, despite or perhaps because of, ruthlessly cannibalising the 3000s. For cost reasons, I almost certainly need to choose Evolution which has been simplified from the two-unit external Autohelm to a four-unit multiplexing nightmare with two and a half bits internal and lots of wires, plus four holes drilled into my pristine steering pedestal.

Any prior experience please, especially as to the siting of the ACU-100 control box, the EV-1 compass unit and routes for all the wires? Grrrrr!

I fit one on my F30 a few years ago. I was able to route the control wires from the motor through the pedestal, but thankfully there was already a hole drilled by the previous owner. If you don’t already have that, I would consider a cable clam and run the wire through the deck. For the magnetic compass (the EV-1) it’s so important to keep it away from other wire runs and anything metal or especially magnetic. (I took a new one to a friend overseas who thought his was on the fritz, but turns out he had his sunglass case stored close by with a magnetic closure.) I put mine under the v-berth, since it was as isolated as possible and I only stored sails there.

Stephen, many thanks. How did you get the length of wire to reach the V-berth - I assume in the fore cabin? I might have an option to put EV-1 under my plywood hood where the only adjacent metal would be the alloy mast, wishbone and the alloy window frame which has s/s rods holding it together. See pic which was not taken for this purpose.

Raymarine makes lots of different lengths of their seatalk ng cable, up to 15m I believe. For a long run it’s best to use their backbone cable (blue) for most of the run (which is a larger gauge wire internally) and then use an adapter to the spur cable (white). I found that the cables that came with the devices were almost always the wrong length for my boat, and Raymarine makes you pay a hefty premium for their cables. But generally, the seatalk ng network is made up of a backbone cable (blue) with a single terminal resistor on each end, with every component connected by a spur cable (white). The backbone cable daisy chains through each of the adapters. They make spur cable adapters as single or multiple spurs, or even one that has the terminal resistor built in.

For my boat, I used a 5m backbone cable to the v-berth, and actually had one of their analog to digital adapters (ITC-5) there that connected legacy depth and speed sensors to the network. That has a spur adapter built in that I connected to.

Could you please send more pictures of your doghouse
I’ve been thinking of adding one to my f33 as I never drop the canopy .and it’s starting to look tired again after only 2 years

Bill, I’ll start a new topic - as soon as I can get up the enthusiasm. Spluttering with a cold and more just now.

I installed a Raymarine Evolution wheelpilot on my 1985 Freedom 32 last spring. I mounted the EV-1 under the sole near the center line of the boat about three feet nehind the mast. I had the same qualms about drilling four holes in my nice Edson pedestal but finally did, figuring that those holes could be filled and touched up in case I ever removed the wheel pilot. I mounted the control unit at the nav station behind a sliding panel. Fortunately, the prior owner had installed a Seatalkng network a few years before so it was easy to tap into that to connect the various parts of the autopilot.

New topic has been added.