Subject: Auto pilot should -> Standby when engine placed into Neutral
This is a pet peeve of mine. There are times when I place my engine throttle to its neutral position while having my Auto pilot in "Heading hold". It would be so convenient if when I do this the Auto pilot software detected the 'zero speed' setting and automagical switches to "Standby". This would avoid the Auto pilot's software getting a real twist in its knickers due to the zero speed discovery.
I will be asking/suggesting to Garmin about this change in the way the Auto pilot operates.
Do others see this as a useful change for Garmin to make ? Thanks for any insights, be they +ive or -ive. 🙂
The only reason I can see for this not to be a default feature would be if the helmsman wanted to go back and forth between idle speed and neutral to control forward speed while "Heading hold" is active.
yes i always forget this. I only imagine the poor rudder and ram trying to steer a boat with no forward motion as it gets blown around by the wind and waves.
I wonder however whether there are use cases where you would still want the autopilot to function even if the throttle is in neutral? towing? in a fast moving current?
not sure just speculating -?
Surely, at best, "Heading hold" would be ambiguous at zero speed. The only use case for this might be if the helmsman wanted to return to the previously set heading when returning throttle to continue forward motion.
This feature makes sense to me. I would think it would not be difficult to add And useful considering how the system really cannot work at super low (or no) speed.
What is a known fact is that when throttle is in neutral and boat slows down and becomes subject to wind, waves and current and the Auto pilot's Heading hold is active the Auto pilot's software has a real struggle trying to figure out what to do with the rudder position. It becomes such a struggle that the Auto pilot becomes 'locked up' and the steering wheel either locks up and cannot be turned or it freely rotates with absolutely no input to the rudder position. The typical resolution to this happening is to manually place the Auto pilot controller to "Standby" and after a few moments full control is returned to the steering wheel.
BTW... can you reference some details as to the Auto pilot feature not having access to the boats speed ?
I do agree that holding a heading does not require input for boat's speed; all that's required is to know the deviation of the Hold Heading value and the electronic compass reading to know which way to turn the rudder to obtain the boat's correct heading, all with the assumption the boat is moving forward at some non-zero speed. However, when the electronic compass is wallowing all over due to the boat's throttle being in neutral the the Auto pilot's software for controlling the rudder movement becomes problematic and does weird things such as locking up the hydraulic steering and/or the Auto pilot's hydraulic pump.... simply a bad situation and a software nightmare (a deadly embrace) that is not well thought out IMO. This deadly embrace can be avoided if the Auto pilot is placed into Standby mode and releases the software from having to manage an untenable/unmanageable condition.
The Garmin software has access to the boat's GPS speed and the engine's prop shaft RPM so it should be possible for the Garmin software to discover when the throttle has been placed in neutral and to convey/communicate this fact to the Auto pilot's software so that Standby mode is activated.... I'm sure that Garmin's Auto pilot software guru would agree with my feature suggestion and would lessen (and even avoid) the burden for the end case software condition to be addressed that would avoid the 'lock up' as previously mentioned here. Making this suggested feature user settable would also be acceptable. This feature IMO borders on improving the safety for us because not having steering control even for a few moments is quite dangerous.
Well good luck with garmin making changes as you suggested. But since there are many possible engine combinations that the autopilot may be installed in, covering all of them in software may actually be quite a bit of a challenge.
I once proved with some hard facts a problem in the n2k interface between the 7612 and the garmin vhf 200 and garmin engineers would discard my input and called the erroneous behavior as operation as designed.
