What autopilots are you using?

I’ve got an ‘88 55SS that I “upgraded” to a Garmin Reactor autopilot last year. I’ve had nothing but trouble with it. Following a heading it does okay, until any wake hits and it over counters, causing more roll which it counters again, continuously increasing the roll. The auto tuning was terrible, e had to manually override every setting, and the auto tune wasn’t close. During troubleshooting. Garmin replaced all the hardware so I don’t think that’s the issue.

It does seem to follow a course a bit better, but Garmin doesn’t allow me to reset XTE, so when I have to deviate from the course and deactivate the pilot it turns sharply to re-establish the original line, instead of being able to set a new line from current position.

Last week, the rudder indicator went crazy, showing hard to prot no matter what I did. After disconnecting and repowering everyhting, the indicator started working. Now the pilot will run for about 5 seconds before turning the rudder hard over (different directions each time). Garmin support wasn’t really able to help much at all, and I’ve spend dozens of hour troubleshooting various issue with Garmin and my installer.

I’m looking at replacing the pilot with a Raymarine Evolution pilot, and likely replace all the remaining Garmin equipment. I’m in Ontario, Canada and there seem to be no super Garmin installers around that may have some answers we haven’t seen.

I find it hard to believe that the Garmin pilot is as bad as my experience shows. Maybe it simple can’t handle my boat? Maybe my boat is too unstable for any autopilot (which I doubt). Any comments would be welcome before I spend a ton of money redoing my electronics.

Thanks for the reply!
I don't have the smart pump, I kept the existing pump that the older RM 8002 pilot used. Initially I assumed it was an RM pump but now I'm not sure. I've attached a link (https://photos.app.goo.gl/PsRnYixWNjnjg7as8) to a photo I just took of the pump. I figured the pump was good enough because it worked for the RM pilot, but I replaced the pilot when I first got the boat and didn't really have much experience with the original.

The CCU is located under the cockpit controls on the starboard side of the cockpit, about a foot above waterline. I did play with different mounting locations but none seemed to make a difference. I decided on this location because the original Robertson compass was still there and the RM compass was also there (both have been removed). The only location I could think of that may be better would be under the cockpit. My inverter and batteries are there but I could get 3' from them and still be close to center. My AC compressors are there also, so if they're running that could be a problem.

Garmin has offered to replace the rudder feedback, but it's really barely a year old and it does appear to be working, I turn the wheel and it shows the turns accurately.

I would have loved local expertise!!! Unfortunately, there are only RM people here and I've exhausted their help (which wasn't much, unfortunately).

I redid both the dockside and seatrial settings. It took about 1.5 circles for the compass to calibrate and north was done in the proscribed 45 seconds. Autotune failed a few times but the alternate worked.

When under hull speed, the pilot works quite well now. On plane it's as bad as ever. I've adjusted all the settings over a few hours yesterday and ran out of settings. Rudder and counter rudder are both at 100, up from 87 and 83 from the autotune. I made the changes 1 percent at a time. I increased the acceleration limiter to 95 with little further effect. Putting it in power save mode and dropping the power to 10 helped, but I still encountered AP induced roll.

On a while, we also tested reducing the voltage to the solenoid thinking it might slow down the pilot but it made no difference.

I can understand how the smartpump with extra electronics behind it might improve things, but after 2 years of fighting with this I don't want to throw more money at Garmin. The pump will cost me more than a Raymarine Evolution AP system. I had one on my last boat and it performed very well, and most importantly raymarine has technical expertise in my area that I have confidence in.

Bill, thank you so much for your time yesterday. I did get the pilot working to the level it was previously so I know the hardware hasn't failed and I can sell it. I'm not sure why it needed to be reset, but that not the first Garmin device to need that. Over the winter my keep offset was reset to zero. I finally figured it out because my anchor wasn't setting easily for the first time ever. My process with my old Rocna and nee Spade, is to drop 3x depth then pull back and it works, except when youre off by 5 of depth!

I really miss my old Navnet 3d units

I tried lowering them a bit and it got worse, but Im happy to try lowering them down that far and trying. I'll do it tomorrow, it's pretty windy today.
Thanks!

Sorry for the delay responding. Work, weather, and family prevented a followup seatrial until this morning. Today the wind is under 1km and the water is glass flat, so it's the perfect time to test.

Bill, I changed the high-speed rudder and counter rudder gains down to 50 and then tested. No rolling. I upped them by 5%, at at 70 the rolling came back, so backed down to 67% on both without any AP-induced roll!!! I even switched from economy to normal mode without impact. I tried crossing my own wake to induce the AP to overreact and it didn't!

I was all set to replace my gear and now I don't think I need to. Thank you so much for this help. I've been playing with this for 2 years unsuccessfully. How do I know if I've got things tuned perfectly? Both rudder and counter are set to the same number, but from your responses, the counter should be lower?

I dropped my acceleration limit from 95% to 87% with no noticeable effect, so not sure if that's good or will mean it will respond too sluggishly in worse weather. On the Raymarine and Furuno pilot's, there is a sea state setting to easily adjust the AP for different conditions. I don't see that in the Garmin, am I missing it?

I hope all goes well for you, and all with you.

Thanks for all you've done, and for your explanation of the counter rudder. I'll work on that .

Just thinking of you, Bill. Hope you and yours are doing alright.

With Bills help, my Garmin pilot is working finally. I think Garmins self tuning is simply horrible. Simrad, Raymarine and practically everyone else beats them. Grr ons support is pretty poor on this also. I can’t forgive 2 years it took for this to get working, despite dozens of calls. Bill was able to help me with a phone call and email, so why can’t the manufacturer?

I’m also completely at a loss as to why garmins plotters don’t have a reset XTE setting, and apparently never have! I’d think that was a pretty basic feature and a huge oversight.

as to the plotters, there are good and bad with them. Not a fan of Garmin charts themselves, they over simplify things. On paper and other electronic charts, land and water based markers show differently; I wish Garmin did. I hate how thick route lines are on screen, obstacles can be hidden under them. My biggest complaint is that a can’t turn off all alarms. When navigating a tight, Twisty area, the plotter alarms all the time and I can’t prevent it, only turn it off each time. Seriously annoying and distracting.

No tablet companion app is annoying. I like open crossing while sitting on the bench in front of the helm while holding the ap control. I wish I could have my tablet to see my progress. If I had Raymarine or Furuno, I could. The pc planning app is horrible.

On the plus side, I like that it can follow a route without hearing alarms and confirmation at every turn. Creating routes is easy on the plotter, easier than the Raymarine.

Bill, how are you doing? Just wanted to see if you’re okay over there...