Philip, you have the older, original wheel drive. It was a real PITA. I fussed and cussed with one on a previous boat.
Three things you can do: There is an adjustment. It's under a little plastic cap that's flush with the plastic, on the motor end. Near the motor as I recall. It's very sensitive. Not a good solution as you will still soon have trouble again. Get the current drive unit. I just installed an Autohelm S1 and the newer, metal insides work GREAT! They fixed all the problems. A friend has had one for several years with no problems. A cheaper solution is what I did on the previous boat. Buy an old Navico autopilot. The one you see a lot that has the "motor" on a mount and an external drive belt going to a pulley on the wheel. A dead one is good. Cut off the control unit and throw it away. Open the motor unit. There's some circuitry in there but what you want to do is connect the wires directly to the motor itself. Run these wires to the motor terminals on the autohelm. When I did it, I checked the current on the Navico motor no load, load and stall, and it matched the autohelm motor within about 1/4 AMP as I recall. I used this for a couple years and a few thousand miles with no problem. Rick S/V Valkyrie At 06:41 AM 7/23/2008, Philip & Marilyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >I have an Autohelm 6000 wheel pilot (came with the boat) and >definitely do not like the drag and catch that the disengaged belt >causes on the helm. What investigation I have done tells me that >there is no solution to this problem. > >I am thinking about getting a below deck electric ram - Type 1 >Linear Drive 12 V. I believe it will interface with my existing >control head. Money is a consideration. Does any one have any >experience with these? When it is disengaged, how much drag does it >place on the (cable and quadrant) steering system? > >Thanks, Philip > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Absolute safety is a concept promoted by those without the guts to live in the real world. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
