Have been sail Soling 1Ms for over ten years and recently acquired an EC 12. Love the 12 and it has worked flawlessly during that time, but recently I have had some electronic problems. Have been reading articles on the RPG and feel that I have been educated beyond my intelligence. It will sail fine for about 30 minutes and then loose all control. When I finally get it back to shore the sail servo revolves in and out on its own as does jib "twicher" while the rudder is unaffected. I have tried a different transmitter and receiver to no avail. Even with the transmitter turned off, it continues to move the sheets in and out. I have disconnected the "twicher" as I seem to recall someone saying that it may be the problem. I have also replaced the battery thinking low voltage output might be the cause. This boat was built by Robins Yachts in 2001 and I am assuming this may be the original RPG unit. If there is a letter behind RPG 280 I cannot see it. I have checked the voltage going into the the winch and it is 6 volts while the volts coming out and going into the receiver is about 4.6. Understand that this is normal as the winch has a voltage regulator. It is wired with the battery going directly into the winch and I have not attempted rewiring it with a "Y" wiring harness, since it has worked perfectly in the past. Would like to have it sea worthy for the Wisteria Cup here in Charleston next months. Your expertise would be very much appreciated. The Ole Codger.

That should read Super Winch "RMG 280[". I was really wanting to sail fast like a RPG (Rocket powered grenade)

I wonder what your battery pack is. If it is a 5 cell nickle metal Hydride (NiMH) pack it should be well over 6 volts. I find they will charge up to over 7 volts. I think an old battery (or in your case maybe 2 old batteries) with a dying cell can cause this sort of uncontrolled rotation on an RMG winch. If you have failsafe turned on, the winch will draw power and the voltage will drop into the failsafe zone and the winch rotates/sheets to a little tighter than half way out, then the voltage can go back up and the winch rotates with no input from the radio. I think this can happen over and over.

I think this is a specific problem that generally happens under load, but you might make sure that you have a good fairly new battery (with no dying cell).

If you are using a 4 cell MiMH pack then I believe 6 volts would be a good full charge number and if the winch has been set up to run on 6 volts then it will be happy and not go into failsafe at that low voltage. My point being that the RMG is set up (per the instructions) to run on X volts and it might act badly if you decide to use a lower voltage battery pack, like 4 cell instead of 5 cell.

Scott

Thank you very much Scott. I am going to borrow a LiFe 6.6 volt battery and try it to see if that solves my problem before I invest in a new winch.

Ole Codgefr wrote:Thank you very much Scott. I am going to give these fantastic tig welders and borrow a LiFe 6.6 volt battery and try it to see if that solves my problem before I invest in a new winch.

Was the battery the problem, Ole Codger? I'm kind of in the same situation, but I don't have anyone who could borrow me the battery to test this.

You don't say what servos you have installed. My boat used a 7.2 volt NiMh pack with a Hitec HS645MG analog servo on the jib trim and a HS645MG digital servo on the rudder. I had the same problem, main sheeting in and out uncontrollably. Tried a 6 volt Lithium Ion pack with the same results. The solution was to replace the digital servo with an analog one. Happy sailing ever since.