"Cut wire" Simrad Tiller Pilots on eBay et al

[CapnK]

Anyone else seen these? They are used, but look to be in great condition anyway, and the price is awesome, about 20% of retail.
I'd guess they are just refurbs/returns, but searching haven't found a reference yet to anyone who has bought and used one...
Seen that sort of review/experience written up, anyone? Know anything...?

[Godot]

I don't think they are refurbs. It is listed as used, untested and as-is; but the seller has good feedback.

I can't figure why there would only be an inch or two of cable. Why would it be cut that short?

That said, I've had good luck with my old TP10 (had it since shortly after getting my Seafarer), but I really should be using the TP22 for the bigger Bayfield. The price is tempting.

[Norman]

Lets suppose that you are the factory, and you have returns that allege intermittent malfunctions, but under test, you cannot duplicate the complaint.

Rather than simply throwing them out, you sell them very cheap, with the cable cut off.  The purchaser must open it up to solder in the new cable, and the warrantee I is void if the unit has been opened.

No possibility of replacing the same unit twice with new units.

The odds are that if there is anything wrong with these units, it is rare, and the customer who goes cheap to get one will put up with the glitches and be happy with the price.

Just my guess, no special knowledge.

Resealing them after servicing is notoriously unpredictable, and moisture getting in is deadly.

Some years ago, I read of a guy on an ocean crossing who had his tiller pilot go flaky, opened it up, found one conductor of the cable not soldered /cold soldered.  He re melted the solder, sealed it up, and had a perfect tiller pilot for the rest of the cruise and beyond.  They can be repaired if you are careful.

That TP32 at $200 is quite an attractive deal!

Again, just my guess.

[CapnK]

I'm gonna pull the trigger on a 22, see how it all goes...

[Norman]

The main difference in 22 and 32 is recirculating ball drive, which is both more efficient and longer lasting.

The efficiency will show up in lower ampere hours in rough steering situations, and also in faster response to signals.  The fast response can be dialed back to save power use by accessing the software.  In any conditions, though, it will use less power for the same performance.

I do not have Simrad on my boat, mine is a Raymarine TP1000, but if I were buying now, I would get the TP 2000, for the recirculating ball drive efficiency and smoother response.

You buy the replacement cables for the Simrad, factory built, which should improve the likelihood of a perfect rebuild.

Good luck on the outcome of what should be an excellent tiller pilot, on either a 22 or 32.

[Norman]

Also meant to mention the "Make offer" box.  Try $150 and see what you get!  They may say yes, or make a counter offer.  This is EBay!

[ralay]

Woody bought one recently.  Seems functional.  We'll let you know when we actually test it this spring.

[Cyric30]

I've seen these one ebay before as well and wondered as we all do.
Would like you to keep use updated both Capnk, and Ralay/Woody

[Godot]

For $200 (TP32), what the heck, I went and bought one, too. I wish I could find a service manual online. Or the part number for the actual cable. I'm sure I can figure it out, though.

The TP10 is really a little small for Seeker; but it works well enough most of the time. I'm hoping the TP32 will expand the autosteering window for when things are a little more active. The extra speed and reduced power consumption over the TP22 is attractive.  I just could never justify the full price ($627 at Defender).

Specs, for comparison...

Volts/Current:	12v DC 60mA Standby 500mA Auto
NMEA (TP22/32):	NMEA0183 V2.0/2.3/3.0 (4800 baud, no parity, 8 bits, 1 stop bit)
Drive Systems:	TP10/22 - Screw Thread TP32 - Recirculating ballscrew
Operating Stroke:	10 in / 250mm
Peak Thrust:	TP10 - 143 lbs / 65 kg TP22 - 154 lbs / 70 kg TP32 - 187 lbs / 85 kg
Hardover Time:	0 kg    TP10 - 6.9 secs            TP22 - 6.9 secs            TP32 - 4.0 secs 20 kg  TP10 - 8.0 secs            TP22 - 8.0 secs            TP32 - 4.7 secs 40 kg  TP22 - 12.0 secs            TP32 - 6.0 secs 50 kg  TP32 - 8.0 secs

[Cyric30]

Can anyone speak to Simrads overall quality???

[Godot]

Can anyone speak to Simrads overall quality???

Excellent quality. I have nothing but good things to say about my TP10. Great piece of equipment. It's lasted me years, without any spray cover. It's been drenched and keeps on going. I use it practically every time I sail.

[CapnK]

My TP22 just arrived via USPS. It :o looks  ??? like sh*t.  ::) Seriously. One end of it is nearly covered/splattered with what must be/smells like gray-colored oil paint, maybe BilgeCoat? And it shows obvious and plenty of other signs of having been used before...

Maybe it is because I "offered" $110, instead of the asked-for $124...? At any rate - jury's out on this one for now...

[Norman]

Clean with care before proceeding.  Particularly the ram, and the seals it travels through.  I would be inclined to use alcohol, as it does remove oil related chemicals, but does not attack most plastics.  the ram seal is where most problems start.

If it is physically beat up, or if it seems to have been opened by a previous owner, send it back, they have a high percentage satisfaction to protect.  It may have literally fallen in a bilge, but otherwise OK.  There should be NO oil in the cut cable, of course.

In any event, move fast to stay inside the return limit!

[Godot]

Yeah, I received the TP32 and it is not exactly in pristine condition. Obviously, well used. The cable was cut really short, so it's impossible to splice anything to it without cracking the case. So, I pulled it apart to see what I could see. There are a fair amount of wires in the cable.

Cutting open the cable stub, what I find is two good sized Red and Black cables, which are the 12vDC cables, and in the end may be all I care about.

Mixed up with the likely power cables are a green and white cable twisted together. Intuitively, I want to call these the NMEA0183 cables; but according to the user manual, the NMEA cables should be Red (data) and Blue (common); so who knows.

There are four other wires that were bundled together which suggests they are part of the Simnet cable, and they are Red/black (twisted together) and yellow/blue (twisted together).

In the end, I will likely just connect the power to to the red/black connectors, just like I do my TP10 (although, in the TP10 blue=0v and brown=+12vDC). But, being that I'm a tech guy, and I tear things apart and put them back together for a living, I sort of want to make this thing work with at least the NMEA connection. It would be pretty cool, I guess, to let the GPS steer the boat while under power, and it would be even cooler if the tillerpilot would steer by wind angle from my ancient and sort of working (I get direction; but the wind speed is broken) Datamarine wind instruments. But, without a usable service manual, or even markings on the controller board that make any sense (they just refer to the solder points by the wire color, not the function...clearly designed to not be serviceable by mere mortals), I'm probably too lazy to bother figuring it out.

Although, I may be getting ahead of myself. Why was this unit sold as a very used cut wire tiller pilot? Clearly something ain't right or it wouldn't have found itself in such a degrading condition. So I opened it up further. I don't see any indication of water intrusion, which is good. All the solder joints that I can see look good. But, I think the ribbon cable that connects the flux-gate compass wasn't properly connected. It was easy enough to reconnect and I sincerely hope that was the problem. Barring that, I'm hoping the issue was with one of the network protocols.

In any case, I twisted some wire onto the red/black power connections and hooked it up to a battery, and it at least moves the arm in and out, so as far as I can tell, it works. If it will keep course or not, well... time will tell.

[Norman]

Does the Simrad have a course readout?  That should tell you if you have the flux gate working with DC applied.

If you cut off the other wires, leave short stubs with the identifying colors, and a dab of insulation on the end, so if you upgrade the repair later, there are no mysteries.  You probably have already done this, but just in case.....

It does sound as if you have a better unit than Kurt.

I never bothered to link my Raymarine TP to my GPS.

Have you found any source of factory cables?

[Godot]

There is no display on the simrad. Factory parts are not easily available. I think Simrad has them locked down. The ends of the cable go to many different solder joints in different areas inside the unit. It wouldn't be a matter of just plugging in a new cable; but rather re-soldering most of the joints.

I think it will work; but maybe not to full functionality. But if it does its' primary mission of steering the boat, I guess I can't complain too much.

[CapnK]

Sounds much the same as mine. Going to bring it to boat this weekend and power it up, see what happens.

If it does hold a basic course, then that is all I really need/want it for anyway - someone on the stick while I hoist/douse sails, make a coffee/sammich... :)

[Godot]

Well....it took me awhile; but I finally got around to soldering on a new cord to my "new" TP32. I was able to identify the power connections easy enough. All the other Simnet/NMEA/Remote Control/etc... wires are a mystery to me as I couldn't find a wiring diagram. It doesn't matter, though, as I mostly cared about using it like a beefed up TP10, for maintaining course and nothing much else.

And it works. Beautifully. Much, much faster than my TP10, which was underpowered for my boat. I've only tried it under power so far (wind was 5 knots today, which for my boat, might as well have been zero); but I have no reason to believe it won't work as well under sail.

It did cost me an extra $35 or so for a five foot section of bilge pump wire (it's round instead of flat) and the connector I'm using ($27?? West Marine is insane!) for a grand total of something like $235. A big difference from the $600-700 I'd have paid for it new (worse...if I bought it new, I probably would have gone ahead and bought the remote control...impulse control is an occasional problem of mine).

[ralay]

We finally had a chance to try out the one Woody bought and it won't hold a course at all.  He's had it apart, but can't find anything obviously wrong with it.  I think he's trying to decide whether to cut his losses or to double down and pay to ship it to Simrad.  Our other autopilot isn't working either, so for us, it's been windvane or hand steering.  The autopilots have been his projects, so maybe he'll come over and say something more intelligent about it.

[Godot]

Did you calibrate it? Put it in calibration mode and drive around in circles for a couple minutes while people on shore stare at you wondering what drugs you are on? The other thing is it is by default set up for a starboard mount; but if you are using a port mount (or the previous owner was) it may need to have the setting changed.

As well, the sensitivity may need to be adjusted.

When I opened mine up, the compass wasn't connected. Worth checking.

Or you could have just lost your bet. The thing was returned for a reason. Maybe it was for something more serious than mine.