Last year we put a Wood-Freeman mechanical, chain drive monster on a
commercial fishing vessel. Of course we used Comnav electronics and
motor
driver. (new mercury contactors are rare and expensive!)

Lynn

Nothing like an old Wood Freeman Brass Gearbox Chaindrive....
I suspect you could build a PowerMosFET driver for one of these
without too much trouble. I wonder what Bruce @ Wood-Freeman is
using instead of Mercury Switches these days? I have seen a lot
of different AutoPilot Boxes driving Wood-Freeman Motordrives
over the years. Worked on a Model 12 last summer, for a Troller...
now that is OLD......

Haven't talked to Bruce since I sold shop 10 years ago. I did talk to Doc's
son about the four-wire motor color code I think last year. I see in their
website they have a "solid-state" driver that replaces tilting tables
"sensitive relays" and everything! Also we installed a few "solid-state
switchers" maybe 15 years ago, for the "500" when using two pump sets in
tandem. (mostly on Kodiak seiners that were lengthened to "limit" seiners) I
still have a warm and fuzzy feeling for the cast brass, manual clutch and
stainless steel chains "Iron Mike".

I gathered up two SEA-106's (I think that's the model), one with the
Eproms and one with the thumb wheels. Drew diagrams and accumulated parts to
convert the EPROM model (with freq display) to a knob tuned, all frequency
Ham rig. Was discouraged and quit when my talents couldn't figure how to
tune it in smaller than 10khz increments with SEA's decoding system for the
VCO........sigh.

Lynn, "Has-Been Guru"