Raymarine SmartPilot and SPX on SeaTalk1
Works with Zora. Heading hold, wind hold, and 1° / 10° trim, through a Raymarine E22158 converter with an install that is easy to get wrong.
Not yet tested on a boat: Zora engages wind hold.
- Zora finds the pilot through the converter on its own, with nothing to configure.
- Zora commands the pilot without putting a control head of its own on the bus.
- When nothing else on NMEA 2000 sends apparent wind and Zora has some, Zora sends it onto the bus once a second for the converter to carry down to SeaTalk1, whichever pilot is selected.
- Engaging heading hold again after standby leaves the rudder near centre.
Required
- The converter's SeaTalkNG backbone powered through the kit's own SeaTalkNG power cable, at 12 V.
- A terminator at each end of that backbone. The kit ships two.
- Zora connected to a white spur socket off that backbone. The blue sockets are the backbone itself.
- The SeaTalk1 bus plugged into the converter's one yellow socket.
- For wind hold, a wind instrument on the SeaTalk1 side of the converter. The pilot engages wind mode only when wind data is on its own SeaTalk1 wire.
What Zora will not do
- Only the 1° and 10° steps exist on this wire, so a trim of any other size sends the pilot nothing.
- The pilot never reports the wind angle it is holding. In wind hold the angle Zora shows is Zora's own record, moved by each trim Zora sends.
- The pilot does not reliably confirm commands, so Zora raises no alarm when one goes unconfirmed. The command is still recorded as unconfirmed.
Functionality can be added on request. Contact support with what the boat needs and we will tell you what it takes.
If it does not work
Zora lists no autopilot
The converter is the only part of this pilot on NMEA 2000, and it stays off the bus until its SeaTalkNG backbone is complete. Check that the backbone has power from the kit's SeaTalkNG cable, that the converter is not also powered from the SeaTalk1 side, that there is a terminator at each end, and that Zora is on a white spur socket rather than a blue one. Once the converter is on a working backbone, Zora finds it without any setting and the pilot appears in the list.
The pilot is listed, but commands do nothing
Zora sees the converter, so the pilot is listed, but nothing reaches the course computer behind it. Check that the SeaTalk1 bus is in the converter's yellow socket. The list can also go on showing the pilot online after the converter has lost power or left the backbone, and because this pilot's missed confirmations raise no alarm, the commands simply go unanswered. In that case check the converter's power and backbone as for a missing pilot.
Wind hold never confirms
The pilot holds a wind angle only from wind data on its own SeaTalk1 wire. A wind sensor that reaches Zora some other way, such as over NMEA 0183, does not count. Heading hold keeps working. Fit a wind instrument on the SeaTalk1 side of the converter, and wind hold engages from Zora like any other mode.