Upgrading our Autopilot - Planning

Planning the Upgrade to our Autopilot

As covered in the previous post (Click here to view), we're upgrading our Autopilot replacing the original unit that suffers from Alzheimer's.

I ordered the major parts as a kit from Defender, added the Rudder Position Sensor kit from West Marine and drew a schematic to ensure I have everything.

Autopilot Schematic
Waiting on the SeaTalkng to SeaTalkng Connector

I missed the cable between the SeaTalkng Spur T's It's on order from Amazon. Should arrive tomorrow (Friday 8/6) so the system will be ready to install starting Saturday.

1st step is to install the RPS Rudder Position Sensor - that will be located in the Aft Locker. It will require some fabrication as the Sensor has to be mounted within certain parameters. There's a great how to article on the Marine How To site. So I'm pretty sure that the first visit down into the Bowels of the Aft locker will be an exploratory run, just to figure out how to mount the sensor. The rest of the install is easy, just mounting the various parts and making the electrical connections.

Here's where I'm considering installing the EV-1 the Attitude Sensor. That bulkhead is about parallel with the Helm Pedestal, the old Autopilot ACU is below the Circled area. Would make for a easy location and out of the way if anyone ever slept in the Aft Berth.

Locating it there would also reduce the amount of cable required to connect the p70s and the ACR / SeaTalkng Backbone.

We were down at the boat today progressing the new Cabin Top Winches, the outside temp was 97ºF but with high humidity is was a lot more painful. So no time to check out the location of the Rudder Position Sensor.

At home this afternoon, I did register all of the Raymarine new parts: Wheel Pilot ST4000, ACU-100, Ev-1 and the Rudder Position Sensor. Their site is not that easy to navigate, it's asking to 'Upload Documents' WTF? So I uploaded a pic of each of the Bar Code strips from each of the units. Then asked Raymarine support if I got it right? The Warranty on all of the products is dependent upon getting the Registration right. Now that's a Get Out Of Jail Free card if ever I saw one. Should have an answer in 3 biz days, that will be August 11th. We'll see.

Saturday August 7th. 2021

Took some pics of the area by the Steering Radial Drive where the Rudder Position Sensor will be located.

This shows the distance from the outer edge of the Aft Locker Shelf support beam (2" x 4") to be about 10" from the center of the rudder post.

That 2" x 4" is not a C34 original, a past owner installed them in order to mount a shelf which covers the Steering Radial Drive and improves the storage of the Aft Locker.

I might touch up the finish of the woodwork and the shaft guide post. Probably use the Same epoxy paint that was used for the bilges last January.

This pic shows the distance of the Radius of the Steering Radial Drive to be approximately  8 1/2" inches

The optimum distance of the Rudder end of the Sensor arm is 5.5" 

Looks like I can drill out where marked in this photo. That will allow a plate to be position on the underside of the Steering Radial Drive.  A piece of Starboard screwed through those holes will make it easier to attach the Tiller Pin.

This shows the underside of the Steering Radial Drive where I hope to attach that piece of Starboard.

The underside of the 2" x 4" aft locker shelf support is not quite level with the underside of the Steering Radial Drive. So a couple of pieces of Starboard will allow the Sensor to be mounted (inverted) closer to the Tiller pin, it needs to be no more than 12" from the tiller pin. So that looks very doable.

Might take a couple of trips down to the boat to manufacture and fit those pieces of Starboard.

So the planning so far:-

• Rudder Position Sensor can be mounted on the underside of the Aft Locker Shelf support - Stbd side. 
• Tiller Pin can be mounted on a piece of starboard screwed to the underside of the Steering Radial Drive.
• The ACU-100 can be mounted where the old ACU is currently installed on the Aft Bulkhead of the Aft Berth as shown in the pic above.
• The EV-1 can be mounted just above the new ACU-100
• The p70s Autopilot Control head can be mounted where the Garmin Echo Depth instrument is currently located, we'll have to figure out where to move the Echo instrument. The Echo Depth Instrument can be moved to the Port Side Pedestal wing, we'll just remove the temporary cup holder that is mounted there at present.

Next trip to the boat will be to start on the RPS install, it will have to be early in the day as it just gets too hot right now.

We're planning on taking the boat out on August 16th for a couple of nights, it would be nice to have the Autopilot installed ready for testing on that trip.

See you on the water, maybe not even holding onto the helm.

Installing the Raymarine Rudder Position Sensor

Installing the Raymarine Autopilot Rudder Sensor (RPS)

This starts off techy, but read it to the end.

As mentioned in the previous post, the plan is to mount the RPS on the underside of the Aft Locker Shelf Support Beam. 

The RPS arm must be parallel to the Steering Radial Drive Radius when the rudder is amidships. There is a small amount of adjustment of the sensor (it has 3 extended slots in it's mounting base)

Schematic of RPS
Connection to the Steering Radial Drive

The vertical alignment of the RPS and the Tiller Pin has to be within +/- 5º Max. I'll make several Starboard Mounting plates of different thicknesses and use those that are needed to get the alignment within tolerance. I have several thicknesses of Starboard, so this should be easy. 

Well that first layout didn't work. The vertical alignment of the Tiller Pin would move everything down too low on the Steering Radial Drive - there would be huge chunk of starboard on the underside in order to clear the ridges.

Second design: Duh, looks a lot simpler.

This pic shows the underside of the Steering Radial Drive, that hole with the cable poking through is the problem for the 1st design.

Duh - Just make a bracket that can be held in place using the Thru bolt (center of the 5 in the pic) 

Basically an L shaped bracket made from 2" x 1/4" Aluminium Bar and mount the Tiller pin near the end of that bracket. There's a flat surface behind the head of that center bolt, so the bracket should be solid enough. I'll add a few brazed shims to the bracket if needed to ensure it's soli

Schematic of Tiller Pin and Support Bracket

Down at the boat again this morning with a makeshift Tiller Pin Support Bracket, just to figure out the size of the RPS mounting plate. We'll also check the max Rudder Angle, it has to be less than 60º from Center to Port and Starboard. The pic above shows the dimensions

To make the Bracket, I purchased a 24" piece of 2" x 1/8" Aluminium Bar Stock from Lowes. Marked the bar about 6" from the end. With the bar held in an Oven Gloved hand, and a plumbers Butane heat gun in the other, I heated the bend mark for 5 minutes. Then set the hot bar between a couple of garden stepping stones and bent the bar to shape. After cutting the bar to size, drilled the end hole and the Tiller mounting pin holes. Aluminium nuts and bolts hold the Tiller Pin in place, Loctite to keep them there. 

I added the two SS screws and lock nuts to add stability to where the plate is attached to the casting on the bottom of the steering radial drive. Plan is to attach the bracket using the center rudder post bolt, then tighten up on the two stabilizing screws and lock them in place with the lock nuts.

In addition to the Tiller Pin Bracket, I need to make a shim on which to mount the RPS and then mount it under the Port Side Shelf support beam.

1/4" thick Support shim 
I made 2, the other is 3/8" thick

The Install process will be:

• Remove the Thru Bolt which prevents the Steering Radial Drive from rotating on the Ruder Post.
• Install the new Tiller Pin Bracket on the bolt and reinsert the Bolt and secure in place.
• Mount the RPS on the new Shim.
• Align the shim so that the Pin on the RPS and the Tiller Pin are aligned and the RPS arm, Tiller Pin mount form a Parallelogram.
• Run the Connector wire from the RPS forwards over the Aft Water tank and then join the loom of wires that reach the APU.

With everything prepped, I just need to get down to the boat early enough to be the heat or late enough for it to have started cooling down. Currently, the daily noonday temp is typically in the high 90ºF :(

Anticipating that I should be able to complete the RPS install in just one more trip to the boat, I'll hold off publishing this post until then.   Tuesday August 10th 2021

Update:  Thursday August 12 2021

Well, after getting all of that prep done, we took a break on Tuesday to get our Vaccinations - not Covid, we did that back in January, no, on Tuesday we got our Shingles Vaccine - shot #1 no biggy. Well, no biggy till Wednesday morning. Couldn't sleep all night and woke up unable to lift my left arm. Ibuprofen did not dull the pain! Wow, it gave me a little insight to what people suffer when they lose control of a limb. So Wednesday was a write off, I was able to steer my electric lawn mower, but very tenderly. So I mowed the lawn single handed.

Thursday almost 100% back in action. Lifting my elbow as high as my shoulder was slightly painful, but I felt I could make progress on this project.

We were down the boat by 10am and quickly got to work. 

Step 1 was to remove the center bolt. This pic shows the two shelf support braces on either side of the Steering Radial Drive. Removing the bolt took some doing, over 1/2 Hour to get it out, glad I'm a skinny guy.  That small USB powered rechargeable battery fan helped me keep my cool.

The bolt was a really tight fit through the rudder post, it needed a little persuasion but there's no room to swing a cat, barely room to tap the bolt with a hammer (of course I had a nut on the end so that the thread was not damaged.)

With the bolt out I took a break. The plan was to divide the job into steps. Step 1 done, got the bolt out.

Step 2  fit the Tiller Pin Bracket.  Step 3 install the Rudder Position Sensor with it's mounting plate. Step 4 fit the connecting stud between the Tiller Pin and the RPS pin.

After sweating for another hour, the Tiller Pin bracket is installed. There was no need for the stabilizing bolts, it's secured really well just using the Center Bolt.

This photo was taken after the install was completed, it shows the Connecting stud already installed.

Peggy had a good idea! Use a clamp to hold the RPS unit mounting plate to the underside of the shelf support braces.

I didn't have a suitable clamp on board, but I did have a velcro strap, it worked like a charm. That probably saved the day, I just don't see how I could have held that mount in place and screwed the plate to the underside of the shelf support brace.

Thanks Peggy.

This shows the completed install. the RPS is screwed to that Green plastic plate which is then screwed onto the underside of the Shelf support brace.

The biggest issue is getting the alignment correct and I'm not sure how accurate it is. This area is really difficult to work in.

The RPS has 3 slots around its circumference, that allows for some adjustments. The Connecting stud also has about 1/2" adjustment due to the two nuts on the connecting stud. 

Now that it's completed, I took this set of images.

But just to give it some context, this job involved quite a bit of Boat Yoga.

Getting into the aft locker / lazarette, takes some doing, but getting down into position in order to be able to reach the underside of the Steering Radial Drive requires a bit more flexibility.

I'm on my second shirt in this pic, the first was sodden by the time I finished installing the Tiller Pin Support Bracket.

Peggy took a couple of pics when I was not looking.

With the Rudder Position Sensor installed, we're ready for the next step. Run the wire from the RPS to the Autopilot Control Unit (ACU) and Install the EV-1 Sensor Core, both those jobs are easy by comparison to this part of the project.

Total time to install the RPS at the Boat -  3½ Hours. Plus the loss of a few pints of sweat equity.

See you on the Water.

Upgrading our Autopilot

Upgrading our Raymarine Wheel Pilot to a Raymarine Evolution EV-100 Auto pilot.

Our Autopilot has Alzheimer's - keeps losing it's memory and not sure where it's going. Time to upgrade.

After lots of research, despite wanting to have a Garmin Autopilot to match the rest of our Garmin Electronics, they just don't have one that is suitable for our size boat that would fit within our electrical power budget. So the Raymarine Evolution EV-100 it is.

The model I selected is the EV-100 Sail Wheel Pilot. From everything I have read on the subject, it's best to have a RPS (Rudder Position Sensor) attached (link here). Also, the Evolution system should be able to use the data and some commands from our NEMA 2000 network and Garmin 741xs Chartplotter.

Here's our current Helm Electronics setup. The Garmin GMI instrument on the Starboard Side of the 'Navigation Electronics Shelf' is mounted in a DIY holder. It's made from a piece of PVC piping and a piece of Starboard material.

The new Raymarine kit includes a p70s Pilot Controller. I specifically chose the p70s rather than the p70. The format of the p70s is more closely aligned to the Garmin GMI instrument, so if I match the housing of the GMI and mount the p70s where the existing Garmin Echo Depth instrument display is (on the port side of the Navigation Electronics Shelf' ) it will add a degree of order to the shelf. 

We'll have to figure out where to mount the Garmin Echo, probably below the shelf.

The new Autopilot has similar modules to the old system just a more updated / improved feature set.

Just a quick note here. The manuals suck! They don't even clearly identify all of the components of the system because they include the components of several other systems. It takes a lot of reading to figure out which parts of the manual are applicable to the system I purchased.

The Evolution system has:

• ACU 100 (The Brain)
• p70s Controller
• EV-100 Attitude Heading Reference Sensor
• Evolution Wheel Drive

Optional equipment:

• RPS - Rudder Position Sensor.

The Kit includes a SeaTalkng Backbone, 2 SeaTalkng T Connectors, 2 End terminators and cables for each of the devices.

Not included are the SeaTalkng to Device net Male connector (connects NEMA 2000 to SeaTalkng) Note: That cable has to connect to a NEMA 2000 T Connector which requires a NEMA 2000 Male Connector. The cable is available in both Male and Female versions.

 I did need to order a few things to go with the kit. The RPS as mentioned, the SeaTalkng to Device Net cable, a spare NEMA 2000 T connector and a 3m SeaTalkng to SeaTalkng cable to connect from the SeaTalkng backbone to the p70s instrument.  Those should all arrive by August 6th. But as Covid is having another surge, it may impede delivery so I'm expecting they will arrive mid August. Fingers are crossed.

Location of the system parts is the first step in Installation. The Raymarine manuals repeat that the p70s should not be adjacent to the Compass and other magnetic equipment. However, every installation that I've seen on YouTube has shown the instrument being installed almost as close to the compass as it could be. At least our location of that instrument should be slightly further from the Compass.

The old Autopilot ACU is located on the Aft bulkhead of the Aft Berth just to port of the Helm wheel cables. The new ACU could be there.

The SeaTalkng Backbone could be close to the ACU but I would prefer that it was not on display and subject to being accidently knocked.

The EV-1 Sensor location is a little more problematic. Away from the engine, magnetic devices or large chunks of metal (like the spare anchor in the Lazarette) or Electrical wiring runs. We've decided that the best option is to go down to the boat and determine where to place it. The existing 'Magnetic Fluxgate Compass' unit is mounted outside of the Aft Berth access door but the new EV-1 will not fit in that location. We'll figure it out.

Lastly, the Wheel Drive is a direct replacement for our existing Wheel Drive, we're only changing it for the new one because I'm sure that Raymarine has made some improvements in the design, mechanical as it is. The new Wheel Drive also has the new Drive Motor - and though I could change the motor out to the old wheel drive, might as well just go ahead and use the new one. I'll keep the old unit until it's considered 'Hording' and then give it to the sailing club's flea market.

The new system does seem to need two power supply points, one to the SeaTalkng backbone and the other to the ACU. I'm contacting Raymarine to confirm that, shouldn't be a problem as we already have a dedicated Auto Pilot Circuit Breaker on the main Electrical Control Panel.

Ok, that describes the system, components and the plan to locate them.

From my previous experience working on Autopilots, the wiring has been an issue, particularly when the wiring was not via a Plug and Socket, such as the Power Supply, motor connection and the SeaTalkng connection to the ACU. The wires are typically far to small to fit properly inside of a screwed connection. 

This Ferrule Crimping Kit should take care of that issue. 

Oh! it has 2000 Ferrules! that should suffice for, well, ForEver!

It was only $30 on Amazon.

There's quite a few projects lining up for Eximius, as the last few bits for this one don't arrive till mid August, it's dropping down the priority list (see the To Do List - Projects tab at the top of this page)

Raymarine Auto Pilot - Upgrade review

I'm normally pretty easy on reviews of boat equipment, but I have to step it up with my review of the Raymarine EV100 Autopilot that we installed this year.

The installation - Here's a link to the install process, but here's a quick overview.

• I planned the install in great detail as it was an expensive and complex install due to the existing wiring on the boat.
• The old Autopilot was suffering, turns out it was probably due to bad wiring of the original install whenever that was done, before my time owning the boat.
• The install was done in the summertime here in South Florida - yes - Sweaty work.
• All of the existing navigation equipment was rewired.

After finishing the install a few months ago, we did a dockside test with the boat tied fast to the dock.

That basically consisted of calibrating the Wheel rotation. Once complete we set the wheel pilot to Auto and then adjusted the heading to see that the wheel turned in the correct direction, a simple test, but it sure gives a greater degree of confidence in the complete installation.

Ok, fast forward to the New Year's Eve Cruise on December 30th 2021. We left the dock at 6:15am dawn was just breaking, we navigated down the New River and passed all of the bridges, the last being the 3rd Avenue Bridge, from there is was simple motoring down the river then North on the Intracoastal Waterway, there were only two bridges we need to pass to get us from the River to Sunrise Bay.

I took the opportunity to turn on the Autopilot once we passed the last bridge on the New River. Initially the controller complained that there was no drive unit found, turned out that the Autopilot was not powered on, but the instrument was via the NEMA 2000 Network. Peggy turned on the Autopilot at the Electrical control panel by the Nav Table in the Cabin. 

Now the Autopilot started to obey the commands at the Helm Station. There are 4 heading control buttons:- -1º +1º, -10º, +10º. As soon as the Autopilot was put into Auto mode, the wheel drive motor took control of the Helm. Pressing any of the heading control buttons changed the heading very quickly, it was a quick as if I had manually tried to change the heading by rotating the Helm. I must admit, I was impressed! I was able to navigate all the way from 3rd Avenue bridge to the Las Olas Blvd Bridge - there I took the pilot out of Auto and manually steered through the bridge where the current was pretty heavy and there was other boat traffic the really required manual control.

Again, when we passed the Sunrise Blvd Bridge, I went back to manual operation. After the last bridge, Peggy took the helm with the Autopilot in Standby.

The old Autopilot would very slowly react to a heading change request and would often just stop steering, it was not reliable. We tried to steer via the Autopilot but had to keep a close eye because it deviated from the desired heading every few minutes. The Helm wheel would move with exaggerated turns and confidence in the Autopilot system was zero.

The new Autopilot is amazing so far! It responds immediately to a heading change request and does not make exaggerated wheel movements, in fact they are quite fine movements. We have had other people sail on Eximius, and they would not make such fine movements of the wheel despite instructions on how to hold the wheel and make small but early trims of the wheel to keep on course.

Beneath the digital heading display on the Control Instrument, there is a text bar that indicates when the system is detecting local magnetics, every now and then it would change color but it pretty much stayed visible on the first day of use.

After a great New Year's Eve cruise with the Hillsboro Inlet Sailing Club, we left Sunrise Bay at 7:15 Sunday Jan 2nd 2022. Once past the Sunrise Bridge, we put the Autopilot to work again and easily navigated to Las Olas Blvd Bridge, manually steered past the raised bridge and then back into Auto.

As we continued up the New River, we heard from the FEC Railroad bridge that it was going down in 6 minutes. I called the bridge tender asked how long he expected the bridge to be down. 14 minutes.

At the rate we were travelling though the flooding river, we would be at the FEC bridge before it opened. So I decided to do a few Doughnuts downstream of the 'Tunnel' to pass some time in order that we don't end up trying to hover back from the approaching bridges. I probably made 5 or 6 doughnuts, just turning to Stbd by adjusting the heading via the Control instrument. 

During this maneuver the Control Instrument display changed completely. It displayed a message stating that the system had completed the Magnetic evaluation. WooHoo.

After accepting that info (OK) the screen returned to the normal display and the Detecting Magnetics notice was no longer visible.

We have yet to complete the Commissioning process and that requires that we are in an area that is free of obstructions (like the sides of the New River!) as we have to let the Autopilot take charge.

The Autopilot has a learning curve (the pilot, not me!) and during one phase of the commissioning process the Autopilot follows a track similar to the one shown here. We'll have to be on the Ocean to do that, it's far too crowded on the New River and ICW and the lakes are not big enough as well as normally being occupied by many boats.

I'm good with this, another reason for getting the boat out.

So far, my impression of the EV-100 is Excellent! Easy to use, Very Responsive and very conservative in the way it manages the steering.  We have a lot to learn about the system after completing the Commissioning including being able to follow a track (not sure if it will do that, but it has the systems required, just have to make sure that the Raymarine part will listen to the Garmin GPS Chartplotter which provides the data for following a track.)

Right now, I give it a **********, 10 out of 10 stars. I am delighted with the upgrade. Well worth the effort and we both look forward to using it often.

Oh! One last thing! 

Prior to installing the new Autopilot (which includes a Rudder Position Sensor) we had to look down between our legs to see which way the Rudder cap was pointed in order to determine the Rudder Position. It was almost comical, Peggy would be at the helm, I would ask her to go Amidships and she would look down between her legs and turn the wheel till the rudder cap pointed directly forwards.

The New Autopilot has a Rudder Position Display, even if the Drive it not powered up.

The display shows a Red (port) or Green (starboard) block from 0º to current rudder position. 

No more looking between our legs to see the Rudder position. BTW this was only necessary because the wheel required more than 1 turn to move the rudder from fully to port to fully to starboard, so the whipping that we have on the wheel to indicate Amidships is only useful if the rudder it nearly Amidships already. 

Stay tuned for more updates as we complete the Commissioning process and get used to using this awesome upgrade to Eximius.

See you on the water. 

Autopilot upgrade - installing the EV-100 Sensor

Installing the Raymarine EV-1 Sensor Core

This is the new EV-1 Sensor Core, part of the Raymarine EV-100 Autopilot kit we're using to replace our existing Raymarine Autopilot - if you have read the previous posts, you know, the old unit is suffering from Alzheimer's - It doesn't know where it's going and keeps on forgetting things.

This is the old Autopilot's Compass unit. It's mounted on the bulkhead with the door to the Aft Berth, the new unit will not fit there.

The new unit has to be at least 1m (3'3") from the engine, other electronics or magnetic interferances.

Also, the top of the sensor puck has an LED that should be visible and is only visible from the top of the sensor puck, so the new sensor has to be about 12" from a deckhead (ceiling) and that really limits it's location on Eximius. We have a couple of meters long SeaTalkng cable to facilitate positioning the sensor from the ACU. In response from Raymarine, the EV-1 has to be a minimum of 1m from the ACU.  We're working on that location issue.

Finally figured out the location for the EV-1 sensor.

That is on the bulkhead between the Galley and the Aft Berth Starboard side.

The Raymarine Spur Cable is connected to a SeaTalkng Backbone via a 400mm spur cable. The backbone cable connects to a T-piece has a terminator on one end and a backbone cable on the other.

The backbone cable is secured to the existing wiring loom above the soffit under the deckhead (behind the teak piece)

I spoke with Raymarine support this morning and a really helpful guy confirmed that I should not connect the NEMA2000 to the SeaTalkng network via a spur cable, but via a backbone connection cable.

This change eliminates the 5 way backbone connector and replaces it with a single T-piece connector.

The result is a more simplistic schematic but it adds about $150 to the project. I should be able to return the unused SeaTalkng to Device net Spur cable and I'll have to sell the additional equipment on Craig's list or E-Bay. 

On yesterday's visit to the boat, I did get the cable for the Rudder Position Sensor secured to existing looms all the way to the ACU and a few of the other cables setup for install. Definitely making progress. The new connectors will not arrive until Friday next week, but I have plenty to get done before then. It does look as though the install will not be done in time for Labor Day weekend, we'll see how it goes. I could get everything else done before the last few bits arrive, so maybe we could sail that weekend. 

See you on the water - really! That's the plan.

Installing a Tank Monitor

Need to Know

As mentioned in a recent post, our holding tank was unexpectedly full and we had to visit a pump out station rather than leave 25Gallons of Poop in the tank till our next trip. If we had a Tank Level Monitor we would have realized that we were heading (no pun intended) for a problem. 

Researching online for Tank Level monitors, I found a great article on Practical Sailor that identified several units and their recommendation was the SensaTank Marine 100 and I found one on Amazon for $174. It has 3 sensors, so we could use it to monitor the Holding tank, and the two fresh water tanks. Ordered on Tuesday, arrived on Thursday - thanks Prime.

The kit has 4 components.

• Display Panel
• Interface Module
• 3 x 15' Wire Harness each with 4 Sensors
• Cat 5e Cable that connects the Interface Module with the Display Panel

Setup is really simple: Install the Display Panel, connect it to the Interface Module with the Cat 5e Cable, Connect the 3 sensor harnesses to the Interface Module and attach the Sensors to the sides of the tanks.

Of course, running the wires from the Sensors to the Interface panel is going to be an issue, The interface panel could be placed anywhere, but it's probably best if it is near the boats Main Electrical Panel, that means some of the tank wire harnesses will need to be extended. Not a big problem, the directions state that can be done. The bigger problem is finding an unobstructed side of the tanks. The holding tank is very well secured in the boat (definitely don't want that tank moving about, particularly when it's full!). The Midships Fresh Water tank is also very secure, I don't think there is an open side on that tank at all. The Aft Fresh Water tank should be easy.

Installing the Display Panel

The Display Panel has no moving parts (except an adjustable potentiometer on the back for varying the readings on an LPG tank but we're not using that option.)

It requires a flat surface 5.5" by 3.5" and a cutout of 4.5" x 2.25". I intend to install it at the Nav Station along with the existing Air Conditioning Control Panel.

It has to be connected to 12v and I'll connect it to the 12v DC Panel Meter wiring with an inline 1amp fuse.

My Harbor Freight Vibro saw gets plenty of use at home and on the boat. Marked out the panel position so that it was level with the adjacent Air Conditioner controller and then cut into the woodwork.

Once the hole was made, easy to just screw the panel in place, run power lines to the -ve bus behind the electrical panel and connect the +ve to the Water Pressure Circuit breaker (that's the only 'water' relevant breaker).

Here's a pic of the Nav table (the bulkhead that houses the VHF, Stereo, Engine Hour meter, AC Controller, and now the Tank monitor panel, is an addition by a previous owner. It certainly gives plenty of room for the additional electronics.

Installing the Interface Module

This module has a self adhesive pad on the back, so it's just a case of choosing where to install it and sticking it to a flat surface. It needs a few inches of space in front of the module in order to be able to connect the cables.

I'll install close to the back of the Display Panel.

Note. the module has 2 Cat 5 connectors, the 2nd is for connecting an optional remote display, no need for that on a 34' boat.
The Sensor plugs are labeled Fresh, Grey, Black and a 4th for LPG.

Installing the Midships Tank Sensors

The pic shows the forward side of the midships tank and the glassed in bulkhead that helps keep the tank in place. There's about a 1" gap on the inboard side (left in the pic).

I was able to clean the tank side with a paper towel taped to a 16" metal rule and soaked with 91% isopropyl alcohol, did that a few times. Then taped a sensor to the end of the rule and guided it into position, once it touched the side of the tank it stuck! So just a push on the rule detached the tape from the sensor and twisting the rule 90º I was able to use it as a lever and apply additional pressure to the sensor. It's definitely stuck in place. Repeated the process with the other 3 sensors. 

Ran the wire temporarily across the cabin and plugged it into the Interface module. Press the button and WooHoo, works.

Installing the Holding Tank Sensors

I used  my Vibro Saw to cut a 2" slot in the end panel that secures the holding tank in place. To protect the tank, really did not want to puncture the tank with the saw and have a poop leak! So I inserted my 16" metal rule between the aft end of the tank and the retaining bulkhead. It only took a few minutes to cut the slot. Turns out the bulkhead is glassed nearly all the way around except at the deeper part of the tank bottom so it does not need to be modified after the sensors are installed. Otherwise I'll attach a wooden plate over the slot to reinforce the end panel.
The sensors were easily adhered to the tank.


Then I temporarily connected the sensor wires to the Interface module to test the tank. Uh Oh! It shows the tank as being 3/4 full, but it's empty! Ok, perhaps we did not do a good pump out last week. So I opened the vent at the top of the tank and peered in (that's a first). With a flash light I could see the bottom of the tank below the vent, but very little else. The tank appeared to be almost totally empty, a small amount of sludge on the inboard side of the bottom of the tank. I could see an almost crystalline residue on the visible part of the tank bottom. Hmmmm!

Possible issues:

• Sensors are bad (I should have tested them before sticking them to the tank)
• There could be a 30 year old build up of crud (salt, poop, calcium) on the sides of the tank, similar to that which is visible on the tank bottom, that might interfere with the sensor operation.
• The tank could be more than 10mm thick, a limit described on the SensaTank instructions.

I've sent an email to the manufacturers asking for advice, but I think the most likely issue is the build up on the tank sides, so I'm planning on adding an inspection port to the top of the tank and giving the tank a good clean. There has to be some pluses with that process, but it sounds like a crappy job. It can wait till the haul out in November.

Installing the Aft Tank Sensors

The aft tank is in the Aft locker and a pain, literally, to access. However, not too difficult.

Just empty the aft locker, remove the shelf that covers the rudder quadrant and then get into the locker. There's room for a couple of stowaways down there. 

The sensor wire will have to run to the port side then over along the back of the fuel tank, behind the bathroom cabinets through the hanging locker and into the Nav station area. Easy!

Pretty easy install. The pic shows the sensors applied to the back end of the Aft Water tank before I cut off the wire ties.

Using a cable fish rod, I ran it through the holes in the cabinet above the Nav Table aft into the Head and then aft into the void under the Port side Coaming and into the area behind the Engine Control Panel. I was able to attache the end of the sensor cable to the fish and pull it through into the head cabinet. The wire is only 15' long, so I had to butt join an extension to be able to reach the Interface Module. As I keep the electrical kit onboard, that was easy.

With the aft tank sensor attachment complete, I ran the wire from the midships tank aft to below the galley counter, then over to port above the hot water tank, down under the cabin sole into the are of the Holding tank, then ran both the holding tank and the midships tank wires up the port side near the main battery cables and behind the electrical panel into the area with the Interface module. Easy.

Testing the System

The Aft Water tank sensors are connected to the 'Fresh' tank connection on the Interface Module, the Midships to the 'Grey' tank connection and the Holding tank to the 'Black' tank connection. The Aft and Midships tanks are working fine, but the Holding tank is reading 3/4 full even though it's empty.
Talking to the C34 owners, I'm leaning towards the issue being a build up of crud on the inside face of the holding tank where the sensors are attached. But that will have to wait till I install a surface mount inspection plate in the top of the holding tank - a crappy job to say the least! Meanwhile we're trying a chemical clean of the tank, I don't hold much hope of that working, but it's cheap and easy, so worth a try.

Looks like we're going for a sail this week, probably Thursday or Friday, wooo hooo!

We really will see you on the water.

Paul

Autopilot Upgrade - Wiring the System

Upgrading the Autopilot Power supply

Our existing Autopilot was badly wired when installed before we purchased the boat Six years ago. Now that we're replacing the Autopilot with a new Raymarine EV-100 system, we're making sure that the power supply is up to spec, all of the other cables are new.

The Autopilot Control Unit (ACU-100), the Electronics and Wheel drive motor of the system, requires 7amps 12v DC power. Separately, the new Raymarine SeaTalkng network Backbone requires 3 to 5 amps. 

The Electrical Control panel on Eximius is planned to be rewired later this year but we'll take any opportunity to upgrade the electrical system before then.

The Electrical Control panel has a 15amp breaker for the Autopilot. With a total of a max of 7amps, I'll replace existing 15amp breaker with a 10amp breaker.

The existing wire from the breaker to the Autopilot is #16 and the round trip distance is about 30 to 40 feet. The Correct wire size for 7 amps along that length of wire is #10.

Of course, the probability is that the -ve cable to the old Autopilot is also a #16 so that will have to be changed out for a #10 also. I installed a -ve Bus Bar adjacent to the engine a couple of  years ago, however, the planned upgrade to the Electrical panel includes having new -ve bus bars inside of the electrical panel housing. There is a -ve bus bar in that area, but it's just not suitable - and has far to many wires terminated at the bus bar. I'll install a temporary -ve Bus Bar near the panel.

So, we're going to pull two Red #10 (+ve) and a Yellow #10 (-ve) wires from behind the Electrical panel, aft into the Bathroom, aft again into the area behind the aft berth stern bulkhead then to the ACU area along with all of the other wires from the Navigation system (GPS, NEMA2000, Radar, and VHF, Echo Depth Instrument). 

In an earlier post I covered the rewiring of the instruments at the Helm Nav Shelf, so all of the instrument cables now exit from the deck down into the aft berth.

The existing electronics requires 2 fused connections supplied via the Aux GPS Circuit Breaker. Another two fused connections to be supplied via the Autopilot Circuit Breaker.

I have just ordered a second fuse block (see below) in order to provide a neat install of all four of those connections.

These blocks have a transparent cover and have 4 individually fused connections, however, I expect that only two of each will be required.

There will be a seperate Terminal block for the -ve connections.

Those fuse blocks will be mounted on the Aft Bulkhead close to the ACU. 

RANT Time!

Ok, I understand that electronics manufacturers need to make the cables long enough to suite a wide variety of installations, so the cables can be quite a bit longer than required. HOWEVER - they should have a note on the installation instructions suggesting that the cables should be trimmed to a length suitable for the installation. I've seen so many installs of Boat Electronics where the installer has coiled up the wires and left them loafing about somewhere behind the various panels on the boat. Today I pulled out 6 cables each one at least 15' long that could have been as short as 5' Grrrrr! I spent over an hour figuring out which cables were no longer required and could be removed in their entirety. At least I got them all out.    But then I started on replacing the power wires for both the Garmin Echo depth finder and the Garmin GPS - I knew they were bad, but had no idea how bad! Tomorrow I'll work on replacing those cables.

RANT Off!

During a conversation with the Raymaine Tech support, I learned that there should only be a single power connection to the SeaTalkng Network backbone. My plan was to add 12v DC to that backbone. However, as they also clarified that the SeaTalkng backbone is basically identical in function to the NEMA 2000 backbone and that if they are going to be connected it should be via a SeaTalkng to NEMA 2000 (which Raymarine refer to as 'Device net') via a backbone connection and not a spur connection. That means that the 12v DC that is already provided for the NMEA 2000 network will also power the SeaTalkng backbone. One less power supply to worry about. That means that the 2nd Fuse block noted above will only provide power to the ACU-100 and not to the SeaTalkng backbone.

Down at the boat yesterday, I was able to remove a few unwanted cables (because they went nowhere and had no power on them). It required that I remove the Aft Bulkhead in the Aft Cabin, not too difficult. The port side bulkhead of the Aft Cabin also came out just to allow more access.

It will take a bit of effort to sort out the remaining cables. The Data cable from the Radar Unit cannot be cut and has about 30' of excess cable. Probably because the Radar Dome has the option to be mounted up the mast.

The bare wire connections that have to be made to the ACU-100 are the type I try to avoid, but there's no getting around it on this device. However, I can terminate the bare wire ends with Ferrules.

The ends of the bare wires that extend beyond the ferrules will be cut off. That leaves a nice and strong termination to clamp down with the Screw in wire holders of the ACU-100

Those ferrules will be used on the bare wire ends of connections for the SeaTalkng Spur cable, the Wheel Motor Power, the Rudder Position Sensor and the Power cables.

Some of those wires are just 24awg, imagine how fragile they would be if the bare wire ends were simply inserted and screwed down into place.  The kit was cheap from Amazon, worth every penny.

The old power cable for the old Autopilot is a two wire sleeved cable at the Autopilot end, but the other end is not sleeved and is not the same cable. So that whole wire has to come out as mentioned above. Sadly, the cable passes from behind that aft panel in the Aft Cabin up to the side of the Port side Cockpit locker - that means the locker has to be emptied - it's crammed! Probability is that I'll find a join in the cable that is slavered in liquid tape - I really really detest that stuff.

Anyway, while getting this part of the project done, Peggy found another leak in the cockpit, she was scrubbing it down after all the groty work I did earlier this week. The to Aft Cabin port lights are leaking. Another project, but for now I have applied Butyl Tape to where the outside port light flange attaches to the side of the cockpit seating. Another post for that.

At this point we're ready to run the power cables, 30 mins to empty the port side cockpit locker, another 30 to pull the old cable out (and the other defunct cables), same again to the the cables all the way from the 12v Control panel. Replacement should be  quicker as there'll be room in the loom cable ties for the new cables after pulling out all of the old cables.

That's Monday's job.

This project does seem to be taking a whole lot longer than expected, what's unusual about that, but we are spending time getting rid of the failed equipment and wiring. If we were installing this from scratch it would take a fraction of this time.  Oh well! Boat projects tend to do that.

Update: Here's the schematic modified after talking with Raymarine Support

Had to take a break on this as we found a couple of leaky leaky bits around the cockpit to aft cabin windows, that lost us two days.

Back on task, I removed the wooden bulkhead between the aft berth and the fuel tank in addition to the bulkhead between the aft berth and the water tank, all in order to get access to the jumble of wires that are behind those panels. So far I have pulled out another 40' of poor quality wire, bad connections and wrong sized wires.  By Saturday we had the wires pulled all the way into the main salon, just a couple more feet to go in order to get them out from the tangle of wiring behind the electrical panel. See the pic at the top of this post.

It's Labor Day Weekend, so we're doing family stuff until Tuesday, plus I'll get a bit of Canvas work done to bring in some boat bucks. Plan is to head down to the boat on Tuesday morning with the hope of running the new wiring from the circuit breakers to the fuse blocks close to the ACU and the GPS/Echo instruments.

Just in case you're wondering! Yes, we're ready to get the boat out as soon as this work is done! Working on the boat is fun and fulfilling, but we need water under the keel time.

Update Thursday Sept. 9th.

Down at the boat yesterday. Peggy spent most of the morning scrubbing down the deck, it's a constant challenge. With the power cables ran from the Cabin thru to the After berth, I was able to sort out the mess of wiring above the aft water tank. While at it (yep, another bit of project creep) I pulled the wire for the Echo Depth finder's transponder from it's old route into a much shorter and neater route which allowed for the additional wire to be coiled up neatly. Here's a pic of the current state of the wiring behind the aft bulkhead.

NEW PIC HERE

Sadly I could not find the adapter cable I had purchased from Amazon that joins the NEMA 2000 backbone to the SeaTalkng backbone - we spent way too much time searching for it. A new cable should arrive Friday. Saturday we'll go down to the boat and should complete the wiring at the Aft bulkhead, connecting the ACU and the Backbones. That should leave just a few more steps.

• Replace the Wheel Pilot with the new one.
• Complete the cable management of the wiring from the aft berth all the way to the main cabin.
• Connect the Positives (Red #10) to the two circuit breakers
• Connect the two Negatives (Yellow #10) to the -ne Bus bar at the back of the electrical control panel.
• Test everything before doing the sea trials.

Well, Saturday was a huge success. I completed the looming of the cables in the Port Side Cockpit locker, removing about 30 old zip ties that were really not doing anything. Then completed the wiring in the aft berth, that's the cables going to the ACU, the SeaTalkng backbone connection to the NEMA 2000 backbone. Installed the Negative terminal block and connected the -ve from the ACU power connection, the -ve from the Echo depth instrument and the -ve from the GPS power connection. Then the +ves to the two fuse blocks  - 1 for the ACU and the other for the GPS & Echo Depth. Ran the ground wire from the ACU to the fuel tank grounding tag (the fuel tank is grounded to the engine) Basically got all of the wiring in the aft berth complete.

So the plan on Tuesday is to go down to the boat and run the wires from their entrance into the cabin (that's inside the sliding door cabinet above the Nav Station) and connect +v's and -v's as mentioned above, at that point we should be able to test the electronics. WooHoo!

Of course, life gets in the way! On monday the roofing company is due to arrive at our home to start work on replacing the roof and Facia. We're in Florida, so that work needs a bit of personal supervision, the last company we used 20 years ago did a carp job and had to re-do some of it due to failing an inspection. Now I know what to look for - and I'll be looking!

We may get the boat out in a week or so, won't that be sweet!

See you on the water - soon.