[TG] [TG11] Linear Drive "Fluttering" when turning to Port

[Tom - Raymarine - Moderator]

Hello bmackie,

If the drive consistently works as expected when you're doing the dockside calibration, then to me that doesn't sound like a fault with either the linear drive or pilot electronics: I think that if they were faulty you'd see the same thing in dockside calibration as in normal use. If you're having problems only on normal use then I would say that's more likely to be down to something like incorrect/misleading sensor data.

Have you got the rudder position sensor (supplied with the EV400 pilot system but not always installed) fitted? If so, I think it would be good to have a very careful look at the displayed rudder position when the pilot's in Standby. If you very slowly wind the wheel from lock-to-lock several times, do you ever see any flickering/jumping of the rudder bar, does it ever indicate an incorrect value? The rudder position sensor is a potentiometer and as an electromechanical device with a moving part they can occasionally develop 'dead' spots where they read incorrect values. This would cause this sort of problem. If in doubt, it would be good to test with the rudder-reference unplugged from the ACU's connector panel.

If this doesn't solve the problem, please could you do two further things in order for us to have more detail about the problem?
1. Video what the linear drive is doing so that we are both clear about what the fluttering behaviour looks like.
2. Record some NMEA2000 data whilst the pilot is in use and the problem is apparent. Please go into the pilot Menu > Setup > Autopilot Calibration > Commissioning and set Debug to 7 and ACU Debug to 31 (make sure you set these back to 0 after you're done.) You'd need to record somewhere between 1 and 10 minutes of data, but this needs to be when the pilot is in use when under way, not dockside, so we see real-world data.
Please post the video and log-file back here so that I can have a look.

Thanks,
Tom