I have an AH 400 unit from about 1988, so it has been working for 25 years now. Kind of like George Washington's ax, the drive and the computer have all been repaired more than once. This is no thanks to Autohelm/Raytheon/RayMarine, who told me to NEVER send it in again for repairs again after fixing it around 1994 or so. These are light duty autopilots that cannot handle heavy air going downwind. Going to windward they do pretty well. I used to be in the business of selling and installing autopilots in the mid-90s and what we learned then was you want the BIGGEST drive you can fit and afford, not the smallest drive you think might work. We used Octopus brand (division of Teleflex) hydraulic drives for all our installs. They worked fine with Raytheon and other autopilot brands. We never did like the electric linear drives and tried to stay away from them. You really need to know what you are doing or hire a pro to install the drive. The forces it can produce are enough to do real damage to a boat if you set it up wrong. BTW, for long distance sailing I read about adapting a tiller pilot to the bottom half of a windvane steering system. This used almost no power and the tiller pilots are cheap enough to carry spares.
Joe Della Barba Coquina C&C 35 MK I
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