Does anyone see any distinct advantage in hard wiring a Raymarine RC400
Chartplotter to a Raymarine 4000 autopilot?

Stan

Stan,
I am afraid I do not understand your issue.
The chart plotter is not portable, the AH4000 sure isn't either.

If the question is: should you pull the wires (2) to connect the two
devices with the Seatalk buss?
The answer is Yes.

Matt Colie
www.yachtek.com


stan wrote:
Does anyone see any distinct advantage in hard wiring a Raymarine RC400
Chartplotter to a Raymarine 4000 autopilot?

Stan

The question, somewhat inarticulate when written, is not whether it
should be done, for that should be simple, but what will it do for the
4000, for the wind meter, etc. Will new information become viewable on
the 4000 control screen?


Matt Colie wrote:
Stan,
I am afraid I do not understand your issue.
The chart plotter is not portable, the AH4000 sure isn't either.

If the question is: should you pull the wires (2) to connect the two
devices with the Seatalk buss?
The answer is Yes.

Matt Colie
www.yachtek.com


stan wrote:
Does anyone see any distinct advantage in hard wiring a Raymarine RC400
Chartplotter to a Raymarine 4000 autopilot?

Stan

stan wrote:
The question, somewhat inarticulate when written, is not whether it
should be done, for that should be simple, but what will it do for the
4000, for the wind meter, etc. Will new information become viewable on
the 4000 control screen?

Does anyone see any distinct advantage in hard wiring a Raymarine RC400
Chartplotter to a Raymarine 4000 autopilot?

The sophistication of what you can get has increased over time with the
advancement from "Autohelm 4000" (no screen) and "Autohelm ST4000"
(single line LCD) to "Autohelm ST4000+" (multi line LCD).

The original 4000 has no NMEA or Seatalk capability.

The ST4000 has NMEA input and a Seatalk port. From the ST4000 up you can
activate a waypoint or route on the chartplotter which your autopilot
will be able to follow the line towards that waypoint. This is called
"track" mode. I suggest you look this up in the manual.

The main advantage over keeping a magnetic heading is that it
compensates for leeway and current.

The ST4000+ also has the capability to display additional data, such as
(from a GPS/Chartplotter) UTC time, GPS location, distance/bearing to
waypoint, Speed over Ground (SOG), and from other Seatalk units: Depth,
Speed through water, etc.

--
Kees

That is what I needed. Thanks for the help. Stan

Kees answer was sure better than what I could do.

All I could have told was about the "track" mode and that the plotter
would probably be able to tell you AH4k's current mode.

Thank You Kees


stan wrote:
That is what I needed. Thanks for the help. Stan