Wheel turning with hydraulic autopilot engaged.

[Tyest02]

So a few months ago i ran into a problem with my ev100 autopilot running on a seastar hc5345 ram and. Hh6191 helm. I ended up getting an acu200 in place of my acu100 and they said that that type .5 pump will be fine with it. So noe that it has been installed and everything seems to be fine except for 1 thing. If i turn the dial for the autopilot to turn to starboard the motor will turn the boat to starboard as it should but the steering wheel will actually spin to port. If i use the dial to turn the boat to port it works just fine. Any thoughts on why this would happen?

Thanks
Todd Yester

[Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator]

Welcome to the Raymarine Forum Todd,

How old is the vessel on which the EV100 has been installed?

[Marinerjoe]

If I may chime in, could it be a hardware problem in that the check valve on one side may have failed? That could explain why the pilot is driving the rudder the correct direction while the wheel is spinning in the other. Only one appears to be bad because it doesn't happen going the other way.

[Tyest02]

The boat is 2 years old. I purged the lines again to make sure there was no air in the system which there was not

[Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator]

Todd,

In older boats or older steering systems, the symptom described would typically be indicative a hydraulic steering system which lacked check valves. It is recommended that Seastar and/or the boat builder be contacted to determine whether the hydraulic steering system features check valves. If not, then check valves should be installed within the hydraulic steering system. However, should the steering system have check valves, then it would appear that there has been a failure within the hydraulic steering system's check valves.

[Tyest02]

Thanks for the response. The helm is a seastar hh6191 and i believe it does have check valves. The steering is fine when done manually but as soon as i engage the autopilot thats when it happens. Hopefully its something i can get done quickly and possibly on my own as its prime time for fishing around here right now. I will give seastar a call and also my boat dealer.

Thanks,
Todd Yester

[Chuck - Raymarine - Moderator]

You're welcome.