disable 711c low speed alarm

M

madmike

Member
We have a 37' sailboat with Navpilot 711c. Our speed transducer doesn't work at low speed; any time boat speed is below about 1.5 knots it reads 0.00. The Navpilot steers fine, but it constantly beeps and issues low speed alarms. About every 30 seconds all day long we have to push the knob to turn off the annoying beeping. The alarm goes off hundreds of times per day.

Please provide a setting to turn off the alarm.
 
Pilots need speed to operate properly. If the STW speed source is not working correctly it should be fixed or removed from the system so that GPS SOG can be used by the pilot for speed. The pilot won't look at SOG if you feed it STW. If the STW isn't good, the pilot won't be happy and there is currently no magic to change that. Valid speed is very necessary for the pilot. I see you posted under suggestions so I will pass the suggestion to allow override of STW to the product development team.
 
Thanks, Johnny.

Regarding the speed alarm setting: I already had that set to OFF, but it didn't stop the low speed alarm from happening all the time.

Your idea of disabling STW input (I set the STW input device to ------) worked perfectly. Now the autopilot knows SOG and not STW and is blissfully silent. You wrote "Valid speed is very necessary for the pilot." Is there any reason SOG isn't going to be sufficient on a sailboat? Maintaining heading and steering to a waypoint both seem to work fine.
 
SOG is fine unless the boat is being used for drifting or very slow movement less than 3 knots. At that point, if the boat doesn't have an RRU (Rudder Ref Unit), you will have problems because the virtual feedback needs SOG to be 3 knots or better to provide valid SOG to calculate your rudder position with Fantum Feedback. 99.8% of all pilot installs use SOG for speed.
 
Johnny, it's been a while. We've confirmed that the option to set "Speed Alarm" to "OFF" from the Youtube link in your Nov 16 message has no effect on the "Vessel speed is very slow, please check the transducer" warning. With the autopilot receiving SOG and not STW the annoyinig alarm is a lot less frequent, but still happens when SOG is is very low (e.g., using sails to hold position against current). We have the RRU and the autopilot continues to function. A separate option to disable this alarm would be a nice improvement.
 
Strange, I have never seen that alarm with an RRU installed. It is good that it continues to function. It must be something specific to Sailboat/Wind mode. I will report the concern to product development.
 
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