The future of outboard steering? Dometic Optimus All-Electric Steering system
Dometic’s Optimus All-Electric Steering represents a major change to a critical system onboard the highest volume sector of boating and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to call it the future of outboard steering. I’ve now tested Dometic’s steering and my enthusiasm for the system has only grown. It has delivered on the promise of simple installation and operation while allowing precise control without hydraulics. Be warned, all this excellence comes at a higher price but probably not forever.
When I bought Panbo(at) (my 22′ Cobia Center Console) it came with well used — and at the time, leaking — BayStar hydraulic steering. After replacing the seals on the hydraulic ram, the leak was resolved, and after twice purging the system, I had working and reliable steering. But, I didn’t find the steering to be very accurate or responsive and the effort was pretty high.
My reservations about the existing steering meant I was pretty excited about the prospect of trying out a new and different option. I was already quite aware of Dometic’s system having seen it at IBEX, METS TRADE, and MIBS and covered it here after it’s introduction and IBEX Innovation Award win. Everything I’d learned about it during my research for my previous article only increased my optimism about the impact it could have.
The steering system
Dometic’s All-Electric Steering (AES) consists of two primary components. First, the electric actuator that sits at the stern connected to the outboard or outboards (one per engine) and second, the electronic, drive-by-wire helm unit to which the steering wheel mounts. The helm unit is shared with Dometic’s Optimus electric / hydraulic systems that utilize drive-by-wire technology from the helm to the transom where hydraulic pumps and rams take over. The all-electric actuator used here is brand new and represents a lot of technology of which Dometic is rightly proud. As you can see in the cutaway drawing above, the actuator moves the motor by spinning roller screws inside the threaded body of the actuator.
In addition to the two primary components each AES system also has a display and wiring harness. The wiring harness connects to the side of the actuator, the boat’s batteries, the helm unit and the boat’s NMEA 2000 network. In total there are three CANBus networks running with two used for communications between helm units and the actuators and the third for communicating with the boat’s NMEA 2000 electronics. The display is currently required in all installations.
Multi-engine installs with digitally controlled outboards can also add a joystick for easier manuevering and optionally dynamic positioning and autopilot. The Joystick includes a high precision attitude, heading, and position sensor package to enable the system to safely and accurately manuever the vessel.
Installation
The rigging tube is in the background just left of center The helm end of the wiring harness ready to be pulled from the stern to the helm
Before beginning the installation I was most concerned about the difficulty of pulling the relatively large wiring bundle through the boat. Fortunately Cobia built the boat with a 4″ PVC rigging tube (visible in the background of the left picture) that was only about half full. Between the relatively empty chase, the use of fiberglass wire fishing rods, and the assistance of my petite, 12-year old daughter Molly — who I parked upside down inside the console to grab the wire bundle as it came through — the wiring harness was quickly in place. I was fortunate there was lots of room in the wiring chase as the harness isn’t small and the large rectangular connector ahead of smaller diameter wiring can make for difficult pulling.
Emboldened by my success pulling the wiring I moved onto testing the setup with all the components in the boat. In order to complete the installation I was going to have to remove the existing Baystar system and before ripping out the old I wanted to know the new was going to work. I was able to make it as far as the display wanting to calibrate (which I skipped because with the actuator not secured I wasn’t sure how it would work out) and everything looked good.
The time had arrived to crack the old hydraulic lines, drain them as much as I could, and get the ram off the motor. That last part turned out to be the hardest step in the entire install. It took lots of pushing, pulling, pounding, and even an errant wrench to the forehead to get the old, saltwater corroded ram free.
Installing the actuator was as simple as following the diagram and making sure all the washers, spacers and nuts went on in the right place and in the right order. The last piece is connecting the ram to the tiller arm. See that washer, nut and bit of bolt sticking up? I had to get all that attached while pushing the nut up from the bottom with very minimal clearance and while the boat was in the water. I figured this was almost certainly where it would all go wrong and I’d throw the hardened, specialized hardware in the drink. By the grace of something I didn’t and everything bolted together nicely.
All that was left of the installation at that point was making the final connections which consisted of battery cables, helm and display connections and NMEA 2000 network connection. Calibration was a two minute job which required little more than running the steering to each lock. A little more than six hours after starting, the entire system was in place including a new hole in the dash for the Optimus display and modifying the helm cutout. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the system was to install and excited to try it out the next morning.
Electric steering on the water
The next morning after extensive dockside testing, I dropped the lines, backed out of the slip and went for a spin. Initially I limited my testing to low speeds down the fairways of the marina. I was aware that if anything went wrong I’d likely need to fend my boat off my neighbors’ boats, so I went no faster than I thought I could handle. Fortunately I never had to test my fending skills as everything worked perfectly.
If you’re reading this section to find out what went wrong, let me save you some time. The system has worked perfectly the entire time it’s been on the boat. I’ve now logged over 60 hours and 700 nautical miles on the water with the new steering and have no troubles to report. What I can report is steering that feels precise, intuitive and easy to use.
Panbo(at)’s well used hydraulic helm The hydraulic steering ram
My direct basis for comparison is the older, well-used, Baystar hydraulic steering system I removed from Panbo(at). I think the helm pump was pretty worn which resulted in, what I thought was, sloppy steering. Additionally the turning effort was asymmetrical with turns to port requiring much more effort than starboard. All this added up to a fatiguing experience especially in slow zones where more corrections are required to keep the boat on line. I could have just replaced the helm pump with a new unit and resolved some of my issues with the existing steering but I wouldn’t have enjoyed the many benefits of AES and may well have dealt with the same type of wear down the road with a new helm pump.
Comparing the Baystar steering to the Optimus All-Electric Steering System is stark in favor of AES. With the electronic helm, a tiny correction in the wheel corresponds to a precise movement of the outboard. There’s no sloppiness at all and effort is always the same. Plus, there are adjustments for steering effort and the number of turns lock-to-lock at low speed and high speed. So, I’ve set my steering for four turns lock-to-lock at low speed and six at high speed. I’ve also set the steering effort at 60 percent at low speed and eighty five at high speed. I like a stiffer wheel than the default settings and fortunately with the adjustments available it was very easy to tweak effort to my preferences.
It’s very impressive to see the angle of the motor angle always precisely controlled. When the ignition is on the electric motor in the actuator prevents the motor from moving unless the wheel is turned. I’m yet to have the motor move without my input whether from a following sea, wake hitting the stern or any other force. This control has nearly eliminated any worry of unintended turns, even if I take my hands off the wheel for a moment. When the ignition is off the actuator has a mechanical lock that firmly locks the motor in place. With the hydraulic steering system when I tilted the engine out of the water it would slowly fall to one side or the other before resting on the stops. With AES it never moves.
I mentioned above that the final step of the install was connecting the steering system’s NMEA 2000 connection to the boat’s NMEA 2000 network. This connection allows the steering to read engine data from my outboard — which is possible because I have Yamaha’s NMEA 2000 engine interface already installed on the boat — so that it can adjust steering effort and sensitivity based on speed. Optimus AES also sends rudder information back to the NMEA 2000 information so now all my NMEA 2000 displays can also show steering info.
The Yamaha 150 on Panbo(at) has a 35 amp alternator and the life of an electronics test boat includes lots of demands for power; so I paid close attention to how much power the actuator consumed. My real world testing never saw current consumption above 16 amps and even those levels were fleeting. When the motor isn’t being turned I saw less than 2.5 amps being used when underway and much less when entirely stationary. The electric actuator is designed for a minimum of 150 horsepower, meaning my single engine 150 is the worst case scenario and power consumption isn’t an issue.
The future?
Calling out one product as the future of a broad category like marine steering may seem bold or even silly. But if the price can be brought down and reliability is proven, that’s my feeling about Dometic AES. The precise control, simple operation, and easy electronics integration are all compelling — as is the absence of hydraulic fluid hasells — and it turns out Dometic feels the same way.
When I asked Brian Dudra, General Manager of Dometic’s Optimus steering facility in British Columbia, where all-electric steering is headed, his response was clear: “It is the future of outboard steering.” He went on to say they expect a slow transition pointing out that hydraulic steering has replaced many mechanical and cable actuated steering applications but they still offer mechanical steering units today.
My questions focused primarily on two themes: reliability and affordability. In talking about reliability Brian pointed out that a lot of the components installed on my boat were first introduced in 2012 with the Optimus hydraulic-electric steering system. He said, “Going back to Optimus electro-hydraulic, launched in 2012, reliability was the forefront of our focus. We were adamant that from design, testing and validation points of view were absolutely thorough. There are multiple levels of redundancy. All components are chosen for reliability. When we first launched we had over 20,000 hours of testing in the lab plus many boats in the water for over a year. We’re guided by ABYC standards but we far exceed those.”
He then described the engineering and testing that went into bringing AES to the market. “10,000 hours of test time for the actuator in the lab plus extensive field testing. We’re very cognizant of the criticality of the product and it’s beat up extensively before it enters production.” Lastly he added, “We’ve done a lot of material engineering and used material sciences to ensure reliability. We haven’t seen any failures in the field of threads or threaded assemblies. All the manufacturing is done in-house giving us control over the process. We’ve brought in PhD specialists focused purely on the machining of these components. With all this work, we haven’t seen a failure of the production electric actuators in the field.”
The goodness of all this technology isn’t limited to outboards. Dometic already offers an Optimus hydraulic cylinder for inboard boats and it seems a very natural step to adapt an electric actuator for this role as well. Have Another Day has lots of hydraulic lines running from her two helms to the steering gear and I can speak first hand to the time-consuming process of purging the system. Like the outboard application, all-electric steering seems like an improvement in nearly every respect.
Final thoughts
The single engine, single helm configuration for my boat carries a list price of $5,200. Dometic says a typical twin engine installation with a Joystick would cost $18,200 at list price. Dometic also explains they expect the all-electric steering components cost about 25% more than the hydraulic components but that premium only applies to the steering actuator since the rest of the components are the same for the electro-hydraulic and all-electric steering. I believe one of the only impediments to greater adoption of Optimus All-Electric Steering is price.
So, I’m hoping Dometic will bring the price down, perhaps through smaller actuators for smaller motors or by eliminating the need for the display on simple installations. Dometic has confirmed they have plans in the works to bring down the cost and that they’re already working on simple installs without displays. One additional lever to help lower the price would be allowing customers to install the system. My experience installing this system showed it to be much simpler than a hydraulic system so I hope that at least for simpler configurations Dometic will find a way to make that possible.
I also hope we might see a few new features in the future. I know that Dometic is already working on a simpler and less expensive auto pilot for installs that don’t have the joystick and its advanced sensor. They’re targeting an attractive list price of about $800 for the simplified autopilot. I’d also love to see an anti-theft PIN when the display is present, it seems a simple step to allow an additional level of security not possible with other steering options.
Despite a few opportunities to improve on the already excellent system, my enthusiasm is hard to contain. I believe the steering on Panbo(at) has been improved in every respect by this installation. I’m thrilled to see it made available and hope long term use of the system will continue the trouble-free and reliable operation I’ve seen so far.
Thanks for sharing your experience with the install and for explaining the technology. I find this product very interesting, but I agree the price must significantly down for widespread adaption. The display should be possible to remove if the system gets integrated with MFD’s, for some MFD manufacturers this can be done by an Android app.
The steering also needs to be integrated with autopilot functionality from the “big four”, I don’t expect an Dometic autopilot to offer the MFD integration and fishing functionality I’m used to. Do you know if the Simrad SG05 Optimus gateway is compatible with Optimus All-electric Steering?
I generally agree, Abbor, and especially for a single outboard situation. But even then, Ben S got a bunch of valuable steering features for his Yamaha 150 that I won’t get as I switch from cable to hydraulic steering for my E-Tec 115. They’re worth some level of premium pricing, I think.
And I don’t think we can overstate what possible with this all-electric steering and multiple outboards. I’ve been on several demos of earlier Optimus joystick systems and while I was really impressed with the control performance, I did not like all the hydraulic complexity between the electronics and the outboards. That’s gone, and integrating this AES tech with all sorts of MFDs, apps, whatever is pretty much just a matter of software and company relationships. The cost for the features can go down while precision, simplicity, and reliability go up.
I think that the only difference is that the pump and rudder sensor are integrated inside the electric actuator, but the rest of the system is the same, so it should work with any autopilot compatible with Optimus steering. I’ve installed Optimus joystick system and I can’t remember if the autopilot has advanced patterns, but it worked well and can follow course from plotter as any other.
Your conclusion is correct but one clarification, there’s no pump in this system. It really is all-electric with an electric motor spinning threaded rods to move the actuator.
It looks like SeaWays supports Heading, Track, and Route modes. http://www.seastarsolutions.com/products/electronic-power-steering/seaways-autopilot/
-Ben S.
I’ve spoken with 3 out of 4 of the big four and all three of them have APs that will work with this system. But, at least of the three I talked with they all charge a fair amount more for this drive-by-wire autopilot than for a traditional hydraulic autopilot. I find this confounding and a little illogical. The one thing I can figure out is that these are the same APs used for pod systems as well and the electronics manufacturers have commanded a premium for the technology integration. But, it seems to me the cost should be lower for an AP that just has to send commands to an electronic steering system than one that controls a high current mechanical pump.
-Ben S.
Price is the problem. It’s too expensive. I have installed the hydraulic Optimus and it’s fantastic, but it’s too expensive, then if this is more expensive, it’s worse. They want to cut the price with the screen, but I don’t think this is the problem, as probably the screen is less than 10% of price, and I think it’s necessary, maybe integration with mfd is the answer. I would like to know if they are going to do a stern drive version, as I think that Volvo was already using Optimus equipment for DPS, and I would prefer this than an hydraulic steering for stern drive. About autopilot, there are cheap GPS antennas with compass nowadays, they can make it work even with just a gps. They should introduce the system wit incorporated autopilot, then it wouldn’t be so expensive. In Optimus with joystick you connect the satelital Compass and then you have dynamic position and autopilot, so I think that the autopilot software is already inside all the Optimus systems, waiting to be unlocked and read a position and course to work. It’s a pitty that you must pay for a feature that is already in the equipment.
Price is definitely the big challenge. I’m hopeful that by simplifying the system they can bring the price down some. Lowering the price will increase the adoption which will hopefully allow them further economies of scale and reduce the price even further.
The ~$800 autopilot they’re working to develop is pretty much what you describe in terms of a much cheaper sensor and leveraging the software already in the unit. That also might help with overall price comparisons. At $6,000 (list) for a power steering system with all the goodness of Optimus and autopilot the system is much more competitive with a hydraulic system and hydraulic autopilot.
-Ben S.
Yamaha has his own system, Mercury has his own system, Evinrude had it’s own system. Who will use it? Suzuki, Honda and old boats? There’s a market for this kind of things, but not with this price.
This is the system Merc and Yamaha are using.
I’m planning on converting my 1981 Citation Marquis to all-electric and having all-electronic steering is what I was also aiming for. Didn’t realize they’d already made such a system. The price may be a bit steep, but that’s what budgets are for… to know if you can afford it or not. 😀
Hi Ben. Thanks for this video, and happy new year.
In the first video at 1:55, it looks like there is a delay between the turn on the helm and the reaction of the actuator? Or are the two cameras not totally in sync?
Can the system change directions quickly? Like, when you start turning in the wrong direction and correct it immediately: will the system be able react quickly?
Hi Mark,
I think my sync might be slightly off there. I’ve never found any lag in real-world handling. Also, I’ve seen no delays in changing directions and found the unit to move plenty quick enough. When sitting dockside and running the wheel lock-to-lock, visually it doesn’t seem like it’s turning fast enough. In actual handling, I’ve always found it to be plenty fast, including in docking situations where I do sometimes run the steering from one lock to the other.
-Ben S.
Who does sales in Europe/Netherlands?
Ben, It has been a couple of years since your initial post on Optimus electric steering. Have you heard any updates on Optimus
bringing the fully electric system to inboard diesel sportfishing boat configurations? Thank you.
Hi Frank,
I’ve reached out to Dometic for an update. Currently, there aren’t any new product announcements, but a Dometic representative did say, “We will have an announcement at IBEX 2022 in this regard, and that will be the stepping stone to expanding the electric inboard steering actuator product offering.”
-Ben S.
Thank you for keeping your ears open for these updates. Eliminating those pumps and leaky hydraulic lines will make my engine room happy. FB
Curious if you’ve heard of any updates on an electric actuator for diesel inboards? I did see their wakeboard boat announcement, https://www.dometicgroup.com/en-us/press-media/news/americas/dometic-introduces-optimus-electric-power-steering-for-inboard-powered-wake-boats. I can’t imagine they’re far off, but honestly don’t have a clue what the required ram force would be for a big diesel rudder actuator compared to an outboard or wakeboard.
Why cant we fit this steering to dual 100hp 4 stroke Yamaha outbboards? Is it a fitment issue or electronic communication issue?
Any feedback would be appreciated
Dometic had been working on an electronic actuator for the verado for several years. Looks like Mercury bought the rights, and this will be the basis for the new electronic steering on the V10, and from what I understand, will retro back to the inline 6
Has anyone install this steering system on a bass boat with a 250 hp. Running at 75 mph ?
I have an inflatable out board jet boat with a 50 hp tohatsu an would like a steering that has no engine kick back will this Dometic Optimus all- electric steering work for me
No. Use a no feedback steering
No, use a no feedback steering.