When I was a Raytheon dealer we used Octopus drives all the time instead of Autohelm/Raytheon drive units. We thought they were cheaper and better.
http://www.octopusmarine.ca/content/products-and-services/mechanical-drive-units.htm These units will not work on a sailboat unless they have a very different steering system than the typical Edson chain and cable except for the one at the very bottom of the page. I would *not* use that thing myself. We had endless issues with every kind of autopilot drive that was not a hydraulic cylinder. They always seem to get a gear or part chewed up and die. THIS is what we used: http://www.octopusmarine.ca/content/products-and-services/linear-actuators.htm - Depending on the size of the boat - one of those. Any below-decks autopilot is a multi-thousand dollar operation. This might explain why I have an ancient AH-4000 on my boat. Don't forget you'll need a rudder reference unit as well. Joe Della Barba Coquina From: cnc-list-boun...@cnc-list.com [mailto:cnc-list-boun...@cnc-list.com] On Behalf Of Frederick G Street Sent: Monday, October 01, 2012 10:12 AM To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com Subject: Re: Stus-List chartplotter/radar You can buy Raymarine course computers without the drive unit; if you're serious interested, let me know, as I can still source those. Fred Street -- Minneapolis S/V Oceanis (1979 C&C Landfall 38) -- on the hard in Bayfield, WI :^( On Sep 30, 2012, at 12:45 PM, Eric Frank wrote: Bob - I think Fred is right. I looked through the Octopus installation manual you referenced, and they discuss three different controller/computer options. The only one I know is Raymarine - expensive, and I think you will need to buy it with the wheel drive or rudder drive part included (which you can then try to sell on ebay) but it works well.
_______________________________________________ This List is provided by the C&C Photo Album http://www.cncphotoalbum.com CnC-List@cnc-list.com
