autopilot
May I ask somebody about Neco autopilots? I saw one working on a old S&S Swan: huge engine, big chain, seems to me it won't ever crash! But what if it does? Would it be possible to find spare parts after maybe 30 years?
If anyboby can answer to this question I would really appreciate.
Thak you all

federic

I had a 892CU Neco autopilot on my own S&S Swan 38, it worked very well indeed! It was very heavy of course, and not as sharp as new ones (I replaced it with a modern Raymerine), but it was very simple, and I think one should not have many problems to get it repaired by a techitian, provided you get him the diagrams (if you need them I can get them). Spare parts should not be a problem too, as I think many people dismantled old equipment for new ones, try to look for them on e-bay etc. As far as I remember, Daniel Fua (I ams ure he'll soon reply to this message) did a fantastic job on his Neco, but he's very good with electronic stuff!

Fair winds!

matteo (S&S Swan 38/067 Only You)

I have not been around for a while so my reply is pretty late. Well , thanks to my friend Metteo for the kind words but, indeed, I like to consider myself one of the few experts in NECO autopilots :-) after a guy in UK who is "THE REAL" expert! He used to be a technician at NECO when they built the autopilots and has a lot of spares and original schemes.
To be short: the NECO mechanics (servomotor) is very strong and sturdy and has very few things that may fail. The electronics is dated but, still, its simplicity means that few things can go wrong. All analog electronics easily replaceable with the exception of few parts that will hardly fail; no computer or fancy steering.
My boat (S&S 411) has the NECO still running fine; I had to fix it after buying the boat but it keeps the course pretty well. I recently bought a lot of NECO spares but then I decided to buy also a new central unit with al the modern niceties and fit it to the NECO servomotor. I have not yet done it so I cannot comment on it; I will keep you posted.

Daniel