I am awaiting parts which should arrive later in the week or early next week so I should have remotes available again soon after that. I've explained to you already but for others reading this, the remotes have been popular and the last one I had ready to go was purchased this morning so I am temporarily out of stock. I'm certainly open to suggestions though. I've considered allowing them to be used by having to press and hold button A or B first but having to remember which order to press buttons just adds another level of complexity.
I've avoided using the 2 buttons which do the +10 and -10 degree changes (buttons C and D) because of the likelihood of changing course by 10 degrees when trying to press multiple buttons and not getting the timing right. Thanks for pointing out the Track Mode issue - I'll have to look into that. It seems as if you have four buttons, then by pushing two at once you could get an additional 6 combinations, which is plenty for port & starboard autotack, wind, and track mode. I think maybe it will go into wind mode when it gets the wind mode signal, then go to the 1st stage of track mode when it gets that command, and again wait for a track confirm. If pushing track requires one to first send wind mode, then I wonder if the confirm step will work. It does this until you press 'track' again to confirm the course change.
When you press track on the autopilot it waits until it receives a waypoint, then it beeps and displays the direction it will turn and flashes it on any other seatalk instruments configured for autopilot popups. So it will only affect those with wind instruments connected when they want to select Track Mode.I'm not sure that will work. This might be a nuisance to some but I figure that those who have wind instruments will use Wind Mode anyway whereas those who don't will use Track Mode but will never see Wind Mode (because you can't select Wind Mode without having valid wind data being sent to the autopilot). If wind instruments are sending data to the autopilot it will go into Wind Mode when you first press Button A and Button B and after keeping them pressed will go into Track Mode. It's selected by pressing and holding Button A and Button B together. I haven't tested the waterproofness of the fobs yet so I don't want to make any claims that you could do anything after you've fallen overboard yet, but it certainly would be a good safety feature for single handers if it works.Īnother benefit for single handers is being able to be up the front of the boat and watch sail trim and mast bend as you adjust the boat's course. Yes, I'd already thought of that and in fact I have been considering being able to make the boat automatically heave-to if you fall overboard. Having a remote with a panic button to jam the tillerto one side might be helpful (assuming you can get to the boat as it circles at high speed and can climb over the rail - actually - NEVERMIND.)Īt a 200m range and waterproofness, you could probably get the boat head to wind before it was out of range. I just have to keep to my rule of wearing a PFD. It makes singlehanding less tedious and I can adust stuff as much as I want without hurry (which is the cause pf problems). My tillerpilot was the best investment I've made to my boat. I guess it's better to have the functionality available and not use it rather than need the functionality and it not being available. To select Auto or Standby I've made it so you need to press the relevant button for 2 seconds to prevent accidental mode changes. (I had to program my test remote to transmit wind data to fool the Autopilot so I could select Wind Mode). Wind Mode is only selectable if the Autopilot is receiving valid data from a wind instrument so those that don't use Wind Mode won't be able to select it anyway. Now someone else has asked about setting Wind Mode so I've added that too. I didn't originally have the mode change functions on the remote because I couldn't see the need either, but someone asked for the ability to change between Auto and Standby so I added that functionality. Dial it in course or Apparent Wind, and set it. Seems 99% of the time you turn the AP on you are at the tiller anyway. Unless your AP control head is in a really bad location, but why would you have done that? mostly turning up/down, and turning it OFF. I never thought too much about turning AP ON with the remote. Would you use the "previous wind angle" function? If so I'll program that as well. No problem, and thanks for the kind words. I'm in for two when you are fully sorted out.