vetting

Here is my install - it's just tapped in place for now to make sure it's the best place.

Well I went and launched the boat today.  Did the dockside setup and sea trial.  WOW.  This thing is NICE NICE NICE.  Trolled me straight as a laser at 1.8-2mph.  Worked wonderfully under power as well.  The trickiest part of the calibration for me was setting the "hard over time" and rudder limits.  I had to tinker with them until I got the perfect amount of port - starboard movement on the outdrive.  But other than that…AWESOME.  

 

For you guys that have it installed, have you noticed that your voltage on dash volt gauge will jump a little bit when the autopilot is engaged?  Mine does.  But I think its normal.  The Sportdrive must pull a decent amount of amps.

I let mine with the Hand Over Time and Rudder Limits as is.  If you dont have the rudder sensor installed (not sure if its even possible with a mercruiser) only the Hand Over Time prevents the wheel from getting cranked to its end stop.  Im not really even sure how it would even work because how does it even really know when the drive is straight anyways?  I think I might have hit the limit once on my first time out when i was in the process of doing turn and turned the knob a little too far all at once and got a blast of wind at the same time.  I suppose I could just lower the Hand Over Time setting.  Does that also impact how often it corrects back and forth?  My corrects like crazy when trolling but it does keep it on a perfect line and it was in 2 to 3 footers. 

Do you know if it is hydraulic steering or cable steering?  Thats the key difference that will point you towards what autopilot you should choose.

Do you troll on just one motor or are you using a kicker?

On a side note - I could have stayed out there 10+ hours if I had the time to.  You have no idea how much more relaxing it is to actually just fish rather than fiddle with the wheel the entire time.  Wont have to take a 3 hour nap anymore after early fishing before a evening trip.

I think that was the first fishing trip that I didn't have to cuss at anyone

How large of a boat?  Motor type I/0 or outboard?  Age and weight of the boat?  hydraulic streeing or cable?

I just finished my install as well.  Got everything all in place and wired up to the Seatalk NG backbone.  I have yet to launch the boat and do the dockside calibration.  

 

Vetting…Try playing with that setting.  My impression is if you put it on "powerboat" or "performance"…whatever that one is…the drive unit really tries to keep you super tight straight.  So when going slow i.e. trolling…it will kinda zigzag to the point your lines / rods may get tangled.  You want SLOW GRADUAL change.  Try it on the other settings like cruise or leisure.  That MAY help. Not sure why your EV1 won't calibrate.  Ill look into that.  I also remember reading through the  manual and seeing "Gain" settings…which may need some tweaking for you.

 

I have a question now…After installing the drive unit to the steering wheel…I now have about 1/2 - 1 inch of slop when turing the wheel clockwise / counter clockwise before the outdrive actually starts to turn.  Have any of you guys noticed this?  I had a small amount of it PRIOR to installing the drive, but It seems like I picked up some more.  Everything is mounted up tight.

Turns out I dont think the compass calibration is even needed.  It figures out all of that stuff on its own and I think that was just an override setting. 

For the slop in the wheel, what brand of steering do you have?  I have a morse unit which isnt as common.  Does there appear to b some slop as to when the brass inner wheel of the Sport Pilot catches?  If eventhing is bolted tight, that would lead me to think that the slop is where the unit slides on the woodruff key on your steering shaft.  I know with mine I had to use my original small woodruff key instead of the large one they say to use in the directions.  Granted they are the same thickness, but there still may be a small gap.  I even had to trim my small woodruff key because it was sliding out of place and the back corner was rubbing on the back plastic of the Sport Pilot.  The small key didnt fit perfect in the first place because the tappered collar that they give you in the kit didnt go back far enough. 

A way to test it would be to remove the wheel and everything but the sport drive.  Then spin the shaft by hand (or with a padded pliers) and look to see if the slop is in the drive unit itself or between the brass inner ring and the actual streeing shaft. 

Took my boat out for the first trolling trip of the season.  There is a small amount of slop in the wheel but I think that might because of a little bit of slop on the woodruff keys.  If there is the smallest of gaps between the key and where it catches, then that because a huge about of slop when you expand that out to the size of the wheel.  Either that or there is some slop in the unit itself.  Really doesnt matter to me because once I left the gas dock, we motored 7 miles away, trolled for 5 hours, did a bunch of circles going after coho and I touched the wheel 3 times then entire day.  Doing turns whas a breeze - just turned the nob a few degrees, let stuff settle, turn a few degrees more - made for a really smooth circle with no tangles.  We had conditions from somewhat calm with 1 footers to windy with 3 foot rollers.  The pilot went a little nuts when we were in the trough for a few minutes in 3-4 footers - but then again stuff was being flung all over the boat and my passenger was getting a little nuts too

Without being able to fine tune the amount of response there is besides the 3 levels, the little noisy bastard does crank away constantly.  However, you soon tune out the noise and it keeps a almost perfect track at 2mph. 

Overall its a great unit and makes fishing so much more enjoyable.  Being one who owns the boat, a lot of you probably sutferfrom the same situation I have - always taking so many different friends/family out, you end up being like an unpaid charter.  You drive the entire way to the spot. You try to get someone to steer straight while you set all of the lines, then you man the wheel the entire day because no one else knows how to drive a boat at 2mph without doing zigzags.  With the autopilot, it removes about 90% of that "work" so you can enjoy your time on the water.  And who know, you might feel the need to reel in a fish or two on your own boat

Finished the install today and took it out for a spin.  It linked up just fine with my A77 chartplotter.  I couldnt get it to do the compass calibration under speed - it kept on failing even though I going as straight as possible.  It holds a track pretty well at 2.2 mph but it steers back and forth like crazy.  I went into the menu and the only response modes are Cruise Leisure Performance.  I thought there was supposed to be a bunch of individual response settings.

Yeh it's all tight and lined up. Does it make a difference when you have the power going to it? As in everything all installed and powered up but steering manually.

I just coupled it with the normal ground wire. My a77 chart plotter has the same setup.

Thx for the write up.  Where did you get your extra cables from?

Thought it was bad enough leanring how to maintain everything on the boat, then how to run 12 rod spreads, then pile on itegrating electronics - lot to all keep rolling around at once in the old nog'n.

With the new sensor core - where is the best place to put it?  Was thinking of mounting it my cuddy somewhere.  Forgot if its better to mount it as high as posible or as low as possible.

Easy once you get the hang of it.

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All of the cabling should be included but not 100% sure with the hookup for the chartplotted.  However, some of them are short so depending on your setup, you may need a longer one.  The kit comes with a hub and everything just gets hooked to that from what I can tell.

Im doing the final install on mine this week and also hooking it up to my new chartplotter/fishfinder.  Im new to the whole networking deal and it seems like all greek to me.

I think they should send out free TD after spending what they get for a X4d

Just send it to Tuna Tom.  I've sent over 20 reels to him and turnaround time has always been less than a week.  The last think you want to do is crack a reel open and then be stuck with a bag of parts.  If that lever is broken (I broke one on a faulty Okuma that they replaced), it usually meants that there is internal issues that caused the stress in the first place.  In that case, Tuna Tom is the way to go. 

Yeah here on Lake Michigan - if you are leaving the dock without 9 rods with 00 orange dodgers spinning in the wind tied up with peanut files (or chopped king flies), then you just arent doing it right. 

Take it from a guy who has bought/sold 40+ transactions on here - just take a picture with your cell phone and post it to your for sale thread.  Offer to ship same/next day as payment and your items will be sold within 24 hours. 

Before you do that, throw a wet rag over the antenna - as in the coil that the cable runs through.

Or do what I did - sell the depthraider and buy an x4d from nothwoods for a net cost of less that 400 bucks.

Depth raider is a great product - I just had too many rookies on the boat that dont know how to play nice with the cable.

Great price for a nice unit.  I just installed an A77 on my boat - same unit with standard sonar types.

Since there are 8 different models of the A78, you should post the actual sub model number.  Will determine if it has wifi and what base maps it has.  Also, since it supports different transducers, you should post the transducer model number.

Yeah looks like you are going to have make a bracket.  There is a lot of swing to it, but then more you swing it out I would assume there is more torque on the mount. 

Can you post some pictures of where u need to mount it?

The drive unit is the same one that comes in the eV 200 package.

Any update on getting it to work for trolling?

...would have to get my boat in the water first  

Just drain it - look on the bottom half of the sides of the motor for 4 brass T shaped wing nuts. Spin them and poke the drain holes with a wire to knock the rust and then the water should drain out. If you really want to be crazy you can also remove one engine hose at a time to get the last of the water out. Better safe than sorry in my book.