Raymarine EV 200 Went Berserk!

Took friends out yesterday on my boat & when I selected "go to cursor" with the auto pilot, the boat immediately started a tight circle. Tried it 2 more times with the same result. Then, without referencing a cursor destination & in AP standby, I selected the Auto and the boat, again, started a circular pattern.

Any suggestions out there?

From he FAQ section of Raymarine support:

Rudder goes hard over when autopilot commanded into Auto or Track mode

What did the rudder position indicate when it did that? Hard over? or straight ahead?

Assuming it has been working until now, we know the motor works as it put the rudder hard over. If you didn't change anything, then the motor phasing should be the same as the last time you used it. That leaves a fault in the rudder position sensor, or perhaps it has become disconnected from the tiller arm (there is a spring in them that will put it hard over if disconnected).

A friend of mine had this happen when he activated the autopilot. We traced it to the rudder position sensor. We tried unhooking the sensor and the problem went away. The autopilot still works and has been working just fine ever since. It is really hard to access the sensor so he just has gone without it..

It looks like you pilot is "Detecting Magnetics". Did you recently upgrade the software? If so, yo need to run the set up again per these instructions:

Evolution Autopilot Setup

Another thing to check: did someone throw a magnet on top of the EV-1 sensor?

Comodave said:

A friend of mine had this happen when he activated the autopilot. We traced it to the rudder position sensor.

Click to expand...

Same thing happened to me with my Raymarine 6002 pilot. New sensor fixed it right up..

I would just unhook the rudder position sensor and see if the problem changes. It is simple to do.

DDW said:

What did the rudder position indicate when it did that? Hard over? or straight ahead?
.

Click to expand...

Hard over...enough that the boat started to turn a tight circle at 10 knots. After that, I went to "stop go to" and tried going from standby to auto...same result.

The rudder went hard over - we know that - that steers the boat. What did the indicator on the display do? Does it follow the rudder position correctly? If it does then the problem is not likely to be the rudder position sensor.

If the position indicator on the display always indicates hard over, then that is likely your problem. If there is a position sensor, and it is indicating hard over because it is disconnected or faulty, the autopilot is going to try to move the rudder the other way (thinking to center it) and you will spin circles.