Jeffa Autopilot Failure

Don't forget that there are only 2 or 3 gear teeth doing the work in the planetary. So mechanical fatigue will aways be a problem.

Once the tooth is broken it will look up the  rudder until the arm is removed. 

Even reduced loads will cause metal fatigue on the same spot. Your DD1 will not be steering from 0 to 25°. It will 0 to 5° in a balanced boat. So I personally think that you want gain anything by reducing tbe loads. It is a design issue, that to me is limiting the DD1 unit to be used with 505 rudder.

To me, in my opinion if you need peace of mind, get rid of it.

I live in NZ and the southern Pacific have demonstrated me that DD1 is a toy AP.  Ending up in a  broaching position due to AP been locked up with a broken tooth stack in the planetary loosing your steering is certainly a very dangerous condition. This applies to all electro mechanical systems.

All other boats I had and also crewed in Oceania have hydraulic rams.

Cheers 

GG

To add another chapter to this unfortunate everlasting DD1 autopilot issue stories: Our 2 years old AP on a new H 508 had to be repaired (in warranty) making funny noises which turned out to be a broken gearwheel. Asking for the reason Jefa CEO Stig Jensen told me that the cause definitely was an overload due to a wrong factory setup of Hanse of the connection arm to the rudder quadrant ( s. pic). The arm must be fixed on the outer pinhole. I wonder if Hanse made this mistake on other 508s? So to all 508 owners: Check the position of your connection arm of the AP to the rudder quadrant and give us a feedback please! Time will show if this helps. I still have my doubts and we will use the AP if possible only in moderate wind and wave conditions. For bluewater sailors Hanse should offer a hardcore version with a stronger AP.

Donny (name of 3rd crew, the AP),started making some noise, but mostly, the helming became stiff when moved to standby.After a few days ,Donny died.

Since this an issue experienced by many 508 owners, we decided we would need back up, because you never know when/where failure will occur.So we dug our hands in our pocket and ordered another DU-DD1 and will keep original one for back up.Luckily,Sail Service (Italy) had inventory, and a few days later received, installed and on our way.Easy install, one of the few times in boat work where a 2 hour job takes 2 hours!!

We did open up Donny to inspect and found some broken gears and very milky oil/grease ........water ingress.We did not tear it up further and will send to JEFA for rebuild.

But when we got Donny2,we had a surprise in the box.The tiller arm is not the same length as the original.It has a second hole (35mm) further.

So as I sit here wondering, do we use outside placement or not?Also,does anyone have this new arrangement?After all the previous discussion on angle and positioning of tiller arm, why does JEFA redesign the arm?

In the meantime, we installed on inner bolt,and are trying to get answer from Jefa on this issue.

Marc