What was Raymarine thinking?

A few years ago, I bought a Raymarine S100 wireless remote controller for my Raymarine autopilot system. The S100 is a great addition to the autopilot. It handles normal pilot, track mode(using GPS output to the autopilot to navigate to waypoints), wind mode(using apparent wind data from the B&G wind instruments) and tack mode. It allows me to handle autopilot functions without being at the autopilot control station that is at the back of the cockpit.

But with all the good comes three items that has me wondering "What was Raymarine thinking?".

1. The S100 is powered with two AAA batteries. In normal warm sunny conditions, these batteries operate for quiet a few hours. But during a winter delivery with some manuvering, the batteries only last 4-5 hours. Of course the batteries die while you are punching buttons in the middle of a maneuver. And there may be a low battery indicator, but who wants to change batteries more often? Larger batteries would have been nice. More on this later.

2. The S100 comes with a neck lanyard and also a holster to wear on your belt. I like the lanyard, partially because I am usually in rain gear and do not have a belt. The lanyard attached to a very tiny plastic bar(about 1/32" dia) on the bottom of the unit. After about a year, the plastic bar broke when the unit got tangled up in my harness. I carefully drilled a hole in the case and screwed in a p-clamp. Why was a stronger lanyard attachement not built into the case?

3. This is the item I really don't understand. Remember I complained in Item No.1 that the battery life during cold days was short? Well changing batteries is a nuisance. The battery pocket cover is held in with two very small screws. The scenerio goes like this: It is a cold winter evening. Your hands are cold. The water choppy. The batteries die. You go below, find the case of jewellers screw drivers and carefully remove the screws laying them on the chart table. You pry out the case cover and change the batteries. Then you try to pick up the small screws(remember your hands are cold) and reinstall them in the back of the case. The screws are easy to drop and fortunatly I have been able to find them on the cabin sole. But doing all this under the dim red light from the chart light with the boat bouncing around can be an ordeal. I have numerous small electronic devices(handheld GPS, altimeter, cyclometers) and with out exception their battery compartment covers are held on with twist lock, cam lock or very large coin operated slotted head screws that are held captive. Very easy and quick to change batteries and still water resitant. No tools required. Why didn't Raymarine think of this?

I will continue to use the S100 a lot and will continue changing bateries and hopefully I can find new screws when I loose the old ones on some cold, dark, windy, winter night........

The Raymarine S100 wireless autopilot remote controller. In the picture the autopilot is running in track mode to a waypoint, recieving data from the Garmin GPS. Cross track error(XTE) appears to be 0.00 NM. This was while crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, right on course even with current running across my course.

The back of the S100 wireless controller with the battery compartment removed. Notice the tiny phillips head screws. Also the p-clamp screwed into the back of the case where the lanyard attachment broke.