Garmin Autopilot/Shadow Drive Issue - Solved??

[Emerson]

THE PROBLEM:
The faster the boat traveled, the more the ‘Shadow Drive’ interfered with ‘Heading Hold’.

POSSIBLE SOLUTION:
Thanks to this forum I found the ‘Shadow Drive Sensitivity’ and changed it from 100% to 80%. I have not been able to test this yet.

ANYTHING ELSE TO CONSIDER?
I wonder what the brain trust thinks. Has anyone else had this Shadow Drive issue and how was it solved? Next time we take the boat out, I will test the adjustment I made. Now that I know about the setting, I may play with the value a bit. Are there other things I should look into?

IN GREATER DETAIL:

Emerson is a 2022 R-29CB. When underway and using ‘Heading Hold’, the system flashes “Shadow Drive”. The faster the boat is traveling the more often it flashes. At 15 knots, the flashing was a flicker. ‘Heading Hold’ was unusable. I am hoping that this is simply due to the increased forces on the rudder, which in turn causes the Autopilot to determine that some force is opposing its attempts to steer.

Over months of inactivity, I installed whatever software updates Garmin sent down via Active Captain. It seems that other settings have changed (e.g. chartplotters have displays in “Auto” instead of “Day”). I assume that some update changed the Shadow Drive sensitivity to 100% from whatever it should be. I am quite certain that I did not change the setting by accident, since I didn't even know of it. I had to replace my Active Captain card and that could have caused something. Perhaps the Shadow Drive sensitivity was always 100% and something happened that is causing that setting to no longer work for us. We keep the boat in the water and I will stick a camera on a pole underneath to see if anything is amiss, causing the Autopilot to work harder to turn the rudder.

I also previously had to power cycle the entire system to cure a couple of electronic issues and will do that before going out. BUT, is there anything else I should try?

Thanks in advance for any pointers you may have.

 

[Statton]

Hey there, typically I believe the factory setting for the shadow drive should be set at 50%. In cases like this more often than not a factory reset on the auto pilot followed by a complete recalibration will correct any issues. A lot of the auto pilot functionality is going to be determined on how the calibrations are completed.

Garmin Customer support is extremely thorough and helpful especially when trying to sort things out on the boat where they can walk you through the processes. They can be reached at 913-397-8200 or 1-800-800-1020.

 

[Emerson]

Hey there, typically I believe the factory setting for the shadow drive should be set at 50%. In cases like this more often than not a factory reset on the auto pilot followed by a complete recalibration will correct any issues. A lot of the auto pilot functionality is going to be determined on how the calibrations are completed.

Garmin Customer support is extremely thorough and helpful especially when trying to sort things out on the boat where they can walk you through the processes. They can be reached at 913-397-8200 or 1-800-800-1020.

Thanks Statton!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk