Garmin Reactor 40 not meeting expectations

A

ATPNW

Member
I recently had a Garmin Reactor 40 with the Smart Pump installed on my boat (23’ Venture) by a Garmin certified dealer. They set everything up, but I had to do the Sea Trial Wizard. When I did the Sea Trial Wizard, I think I got a passing score of 77 or 79 (I believe you need a 75 to successfully pass the auto tune/Sea Trial). Once I passed, I played around with the features and functionality a bit. I mainly bought the AP for fishing/trolling. So I set my speed at 2.5mph on Lake Washington and engaged the AP. Holding a heading it did ok, but wandered more than I thought it would (no noticeable wind). I then used the stepped turn function and tried to turn 40 degrees. The pump made some loud noises and then an error message of “Hydraulic Pump Lock”. I didn’t think 40 degrees was that sharp of a turn, so I tried it again the other direction. This time it flashed that the Shadow Drive was engaged (however I never grabbed the wheel). After more testing it didn’t have any issues with a 30 degree turn, just 40 and above. My question to those that have or had auto pilots: Should my reactor 40 have been able to handle a 40 degree turn at 2.5 mph?

Either way I’ll be calling the dealer tomorrow. I checked my helm fill cap today and I can’t see any fluid, so I think there is a leak somewhere. When I removed the cap I also heard air escape. Which may be playing into my issue.
 
With any autopilot I have always done incremental changes in course instead of sharp turns. 20 degrees, then another 20 degrees for a 40 degree turn. The wandering could be the settings, perhaps too sensitive.
 
2.5 MPH is a little slow, you could see the motor move all the to the lock position and you will get the stall error. You can adjust the gain if you want to move that slow. The boat wandering a bit at slow speed is a good thing for fishing, makes the baits move up and down a bit in the water column. Try speeding up a bit and see if it does the same thing. I have my buttons set for 1° and 10° and just turn 10° at a time and give it time to smooth out.
 
When I install the autopilot on my CD22, I opted to not install the shadow drive. The Garmin autopilot has very good review but the shadow drive, not so much. I mostly use my autopilot for longer run and try to break up sharp turn into a few smaller turn when following a route, that is mostly to avoid the boat leaning too much on a sharp turn. If I have the pilot set on a heading, I use the 10 degree button and give it a few second between each hit, but I did on a few occasion made sharp turn with no issues. Without the shadow drive, you can use the helm to go around something, the helm pump will over power the autopilot pump enough to get around an obstacle, then you just let go and it will resume course by itself. I do not use for fishing so you might prefer different setting.
 
Tom I knew you would call me out on that. I fish as slow as 1 mph for kokanee and around 2 mph for trout. The Garmin autopilot will try to control the boat at a dead stop and not shutdown like the Ray. When you get down to 1-2 mph you will have to adjust the gain to get the boat to not hunt or stall at the end of travel for the steering cylinder. When fishing slow I don't mind if it zigzags a little just so that it doesn't stall. If there is any wind just makes it harder to control. What I meant by a little slow was the 40° at 2.5 mph the boat will probably wander all over the place trying to compensate for that degree of turn.
 
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