Simrad AP

[goatram]

Well today I bought a Simrad AP2403VRF Autopilot from our Sponsor BOE Electronics. Jim was helpful on the phone. I did save on the Tax, Shipping, and got a good price to boot.

I did a lot of soul searching between Raymarine, Garmin and Simrad Brands. Not lot of info out there though from Independent sources of which one is better. I had a friend with a plastic boat swear up and down that the Garmin with Shadow Drive was the Bomb and that I had to buy it. I have Lowrance Electronics on the boat already and wanted something that was a plug and play with one stop calling for tech info. (I know but Lowrance is getting better) Features I liked where the Terrain/Contour following. Like the Garmin you can grab the wheel and turn to avoid items in the water. When let go it returns to set course. instead of a Tach Signal it uses Speed over Ground in its computations. I will be using my kicker tied to my main for Trolling most of the time.

On the Hull Truth the consensus was Garmin, Raymarine and then Simrad for Autopilots based on sales for the (East coast).

[goatram]

Should be delivered today. I have the boat in my shop out of the rain and snow. The brakes are being redone along with a bearing and seal replacement.

So Les is the place to post the mod here or else where?

I relocated my suspension seats and installed two new air rides with a small air compressor and now the AP will be installed

[welder]

John, maybe up in the forum , ALLOY SHOP TALK , it has the AMF banner in it .

I bet Jim @ BOE would like to see a shot of what you bought installed on your boat.

[West Lake Willows]

How has the Simrad Ap 24 worked for you? How does it perform at trolling speeds around 1 mph? I fish with a kicker and sometimes troll around 1mph. I liked the specs of the Ap 24 but I wasn't confident on its performance at low speeds. Curious what your thoughts are.

Scott

[goatram]

Mine works well at trolling speed as well as in heavy seas. Life is better now; set it and hands off the wheel to my destination. You can grab the wheel and turn it to miss obstacles in the water just like the Garmin AP with Shadow Drive I also use a electronic Speed control that is hard wired into the T-8. I have an issue with the pro troll 2 that next month I will be sending the complete unit back to the Manufacture to trouble shoot. I have burned up to servos. Right now I have installed a RC Aircraft big arse Servo and it is holding up. the servo is twice the size of the Original one. with almost twice the push/pull power. 230 oz-in verse 135 oz-in for the original. I also had to make a new mount bracket as well.

Everyone has said that the Raymarine has fixed their S1000 AP but I did not want to go there. Jay Plumwolf had one(old style) in his "plastic bottle boat" that he swapped out. I did ride in his boat before it was his and on one Tuna trip the it could not keep the boat tracking straight. For 7 and half hours we slogged back in from 60 miles out doing a big half circle back to port. Wind was coming from the NW and blowing the boat off course. My Simrad AP2403 worked in 10 to 12' seas and 20+ knt winds to get me back to port straight away

[plumbwolf]

The Raymarine did not work well the pump is way to small and would not track for trolling it shut down under 3 knots. On the new boat I was going to have the rear steer station control the mains and use a Tr-1 for the kicker but we set up the rear station to steer and control the kicker saved me a lot of money. I am going to look into the Simrad AP did you say it works without the main motor running ? the Garmin I had wouldn't work unless the main motors were running.

[goatram]

The Simrad AP is hooked into the Steering for the Main and then I have a tie Bar to the Kicker. I would think If you have the Rearstation all that is needed for it to drive the Mains is 2 T's to tie that helm into the main. The main is Not running.