[CA] [CA11] No Pilot, No Heading Alarms - Heading source lost

[wgkenney]

Chuck,

I have an Axiom Pro system with the EV1, ACU 400, and P70S for the autohelm system. The system is about 1 1/2 year old. As we were crossing the Little Bahamas Bank this past Wednesday we got a “Pilot-No Pilot” alarm, followed by a “No Heading” alarm. The autohelm no longer would control course so we turned the autohelm off and hand steered.

We we got anchored for the night we turned the system back on and got “pilot-no drive detected, invalid command, Pilot-control unit diconnect” alarms. They all cleared right away and the system worked fine.

In the morning the system worked fine again and we used it for about 2 1/2 hours as we motored. Then we got “pilot-no pilot, No heading, Pilot-unexpected software reset, pilot-drive stopped”. These cleared immediately and we were back to “pilot-no pilot, no head” and the autohelm no longer worked.

We tried again in the next morning and the system worked fine again while we were at anchor and after about 15 min got the “Pilot-No Pilot, no heading” alarms and the auto helm stopped working. This morning the system did not work on start up.

We have been doing some troubleshooting here at anchor:
The EV1 has a solid green light on top
The P70s indicates No Pilot on the display
The ACU 400 has the two lights on inside (green one by the seatalk cable and orange one by the clutch). There is no green diagnostic led on the ACU400
The rudder indicator works fine
On the NEMA devices page I can see both the ACU 400 and P70s but the EV1 does not show up. Same thing if I go to the software update page
In the data source page under the heading tab there is nothing listed
And in the Axiom Pro settings the autopilot tab pilot control tab is grayed out

I have gone through the seatalk cables and all of them are secured. The wires into the the ACU400 also are secured. The cable on the EV1 is also connected and feels secure.

I upgraded all software back in October before we left the Chesapeake Bay.

The system has been working fine until now. The only other issue we had was back in November the rudder started turning hard right when we engaged the autohelm. We did the dockside calibration and it corrected the issue. We sailed form Beaufort SC, to St Augustine, to Lake Worth, FL with no issues. Then across the Gulf Stream before we had the issue.

We are now over in the Abacos so any insights or help would be appreciated