Perfect Pass paddle wheel

[Chauncemaster]

was playing with the boat tonight, and noticed the KDW and NM settings are all back to stock..

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Do those setting reset if you disconnect the battery all winter? If so I better check on mine as well.

[WakeGirl]

Troy:

I don't know that much about PP, but shouldn't you first do a test run in "RPM" mode instead of "speed/paddle wheel" mode to see if things improve.   That would definitely tell you if there's a paddle wheel issue wouldn't it.

-j

That would be one test.. but I suspect that isn't the problem, though would rule out a controller issue. The queer thing about the RPM mode, is PP doesn't really have to do much at all. Just means that it holds a constant RPM, which the boat basically does that on its own.

It was able to hold speed well while surfing - which tells me that it can manage the throttle at certain speeds...

Actually, not true. A good wakeboarder will drag it down bad. PP on RPM mode compensates a lot better & gives a much smoother pull than driving without it.

I'm going to jump on this thread because I continue to have the same kinds of issues that Troy's having (we've never gotten this to work right). No amount of combinations in the settings for both N & K make a difference. The weird thing is that we've had it out & it's worked well sometimes & the next time out with the very same settings it will be all over the place. Also, it will perform fine in rough water then crappy in smooth water & vice versa. I finally started paying attention to the speedos (both analog & PP) & both jump all over the place (by as much as a mph at times), they're not steady at all when they should be. So my suspicion has begun to be a bad paddlewheel. The thing that throws a wrench in the whole deal is that there is a drain plug (used for a ballast pump) about 2 feet directly ahead of & in line with the paddlwheel, not good. After talking with PP about it, they agree that it's either a bad paddlwheel or the location that's screwing things up. The thing about the location that sucks is that my boat has so many plugs in it that moving the paddlewheel isn't a good option - I can't see a good spot on the hull to get clean water to it.

For now I'm going to test it using a test paddlewheel that my dealer can provide. I'm hoping that this fixes it. Otherwise I may have to either move it or go to one of the deeper paddlewheels mentioned earlier in this thread. Do any of you guys using that deeper wheel have any comments on it? The PP guy didn't like that option because he said that it hangs down so far that it can get caught up on the bunks or other things on the trailer. Another thing I saw mentioned was shimming - any comments on that?

Edited June 22, 2005 by WakeGirl

[Jimmy Buffett]

Pull the paddlewheel and check to see if the axle is bent. The wheel should turn smoothly.

[WakeGirl]

I'll check it, but the many, many times that I've been under the boat it has spun freely every time.

[WakeGirl]

Looks fine, & spins freely.

[WakeGirl]

Update:

After doing more testing last night, we've determined that the paddlewheel itself is probably fine, but that we have "dirty water" as Gary from PP puts it, coming over the paddlewheel. Here's what we've determined: without any ballast/no rider & with all ballast/no rider it will hold speed well, even fully ballasted to within .3 mph. When we put a rider back there is when it acts up, specifically on the landing of a w2w crossing - as soon as the rider lands, it will slow down by as much as 1 mph & then aggressively throttle to compensate, always overshooting by about 1 mph. No combination of settings of the K or N values corrects it either. Gary sounded very familiar with the problem & said that it has to do with the angle of the speedo changing when the rider creates or loses tension on the boat. So my question is, have any of you out there had this problem & if so how was it corrected? At this point it's looking like either going to the deeper paddlewheel or moving the location altogether are our only options. Thoughts?

[jklein]

Why are you pulling those pesky riders anyway?

[jmack]

When I first had my PP installed, I had a similar problem to what Tracie is describing - When a rider would would load the rope and pull the boat one way, the speed would jump around and PP would over compensate. Turned out that my paddle wheel was angled slightly toward the keel. I remounted it parallel with the centerline of the boat, and that solved my problem.

[WakeGirl]

Why are you pulling those pesky riders anyway? 

You're a funny guy, you know that?

When I first had my PP installed, I had a similar problem to what Tracie is describing - When a rider would would load the rope and pull the boat one way, the speed would jump around and PP would over compensate. Turned out that my paddle wheel was angled slightly toward the keel. I remounted it parallel with the centerline of the boat, and that solved my problem.

I wish it were this simple, been there, tried that.

[SacRiverRat]

After a day of testing before the "big trip", my buddy and I were able to get it to work as best as we could.

Dropped the NM (sampling rate to 100) to keep it really sensitive, and put the KDW at about 90... that worked best.

With that said, it works great when ballasted up, but with limited passengers, and snuggled up in the observer seat area.. The result is that when my boat begins to margionally plane, the water gets dirty, and the speed begins to vary. You can see the PP readout differ from the GPS- and subsequently it doesn't respond correctly (sometimes the indicated speed goes up... dirty water.. while the boat sinks in.

Becuase of the heavy weight, and a bit rear loaded - the RPM mode is not a good option. It takes some modulation to keep the boat planing when attempting to run slower than ~22mph

I am planning to try the deeper paddle wheel to see if that solves the issue.

[WakeGirl]

We've determined that my location is bad, not the paddlewheel. I'm in the middle of trying to get one of the deeper wheels as well to see if that solves the problem.

Interesting that dropping the KDW factor that low helps it. Usually going the other way with that value is what does the trick. We noticed that dropping the N value below 100 helped it react quicker, but it still dropped off & then overshot the correct speed real bad with a rider back there (no amount of adjustments to either value seemed to help the problem). It's dang near perfect even with all of the ballast but no rider. I'll be curious to know how the deeper wheel does for you.

[SacRiverRat]

Interesting that dropping the KDW factor that low helps it.  Usually going the other way with that value is what does the trick.  We noticed that dropping the N value below 100 helped it react quicker, but it still dropped off & then overshot the correct speed real bad with a rider back there (no amount of adjustments to either value seemed to help the problem).  It's dang near perfect even with all of the ballast but no rider.  I'll be curious to know how the deeper wheel does for you.

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Yea - for me it was a compromise... When carying a lot of passengers (8 adults), even with someone (big) riding up front, the LSV still allowed too much weight behind mid-ship.. I really need everyone to sit ~the driver level or forward to help it level out - so when loaded like that I need a lot of KDW (you're right)... but as soon as you take 4 adults, and balance them... the boat is WAY too jumpy.. it gets real nervous and twitches hard as the paddlewheel gets blasted with swirly water.. (I suspect that is what causes it) For example driving across another boat wake will cause it to rapidly acclerate and declerate - ugh..

Anyway - it is set pretty good for a normal load of folks ... I'd still like to get a different wheel in hopes that it can get into the clean water and out of the wash that slides around right at the surface of the hull

[WakeGirl]

What version of software are you running? In the newest version supposedly there is a way to store presets for these values, in addition to speed settings. Might be worth it if you find yourself having to change them back & forth a lot. I'm considering it, but it will depend on how mine reacts once I get that deeper wheel. More discussion on that in this thread:

http://www.themalibucrew.com/forums/index....owtopic=162&hl=

[SacRiverRat]

I just bought mine last year, I have the 6.5... I did read about the 6.5n being able to put in different settings for different riders, and agree that it is the second step if the wheel doesn't fix it.

I was able to see the indicated speed jumping around on the PP vs the GPS, so I know that isn't good

I need to finish digging out of e-mail and then get PP on the horn

[WakeGirl]

I just bought mine last year, I have the 6.5... I did read about the 6.5n being able to put in different settings for different riders, and agree that it is the second step if the wheel doesn't fix it.

I was able to see the indicated speed jumping around on the PP vs the GPS, so I know that isn't good

I need to finish digging out of e-mail and then get PP on the horn

Mine does that too, but holds to whatever the set speed is to within a couple tenths, unless there's a rider back there. Have you ordered the wheel yet?

[SacRiverRat]

Have you ordered the wheel yet?

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ah.. no

[WakeGirl]

Not cheap, $125 from what I understand. I'm trying to get mine warrantied. Shouldn't be a problem, this has been documented from the beginning & hasn't ever worked right.

[jklein]

I thought I read someplace that someone made a canoe spacer out of a 2x4 that sunk the wheel into the water more.

That would be a pretty easy thing to do I would think as a test to see if you need the canoe from pp. Just get some longer screws so you could mount it.

Troy: How was your trip?... not to hijack the thread... I thought I saw you leaving town on Thursday night on hwy 50 in the rain...

[SacRiverRat]

I thought I read someplace that someone made a canoe spacer out of a 2x4 that sunk the wheel into the water more.

That would be a pretty easy thing to do I would think as a test to see if you need the canoe from pp.  Just get some longer screws so you could mount it.

Troy:  How was your trip?... not to hijack the thread...  I thought I saw you leaving town on Thursday night on hwy 50 in the rain...

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the thing basically pushes through the hull, and threads down from the top, so if I made a spacer (make the hull thicker) seems like it would work fine... good idea - maybe a nice pice of corian or something would work (and shape) nicely

- yea I headed out in the rain Thurs night - maybe ~7:30 or so... the trip was wonderful. You can see some pics on the NW WOW gallery and my own gallery. The boys did great, and the boat worked wonderfully. I even was able to get my W2W back and even some W2W180's - having 8 adults on the boat probably helped (monster wave)

[SacRiverRat]

Anyone have a pic (or dimensions) of this deeper paddlewheel...

I picked up a 1" thick pice of corian® at lunch, and plan to build my own "shim" for the paddle wheel. My though is to contour the stuff to make it stream lined (long and skinny) and see if that helps the wheel get some cleaner water when the bow is high.. or turning, or going over waves, etc..

[SacRiverRat]

Ok - I did it... and came up with a "fix" for my paddle wheel issue. The objective was to get the wheel deeper in the water - and I wanted to do it one step better than using a 2x4

I went big - and picked up a piece of corian (ok it isn't really corian® but is 'cultured marble or something like that.. ) side splash from my local home joint. It was a 22" x 3.5 x ~.75" piece - leaving me enough to make a couple...

I cut down a torpedo shaped thing, 7" long and the entire width. I test fit the rough cut piece, and found the thread length of the paddle wheel to be a little short, so I recessed the wheel into the top of the block a bit (that is what the circle is in the center) I also removed the "isolator ring" from the inside of the hull (rubber washer) to buy me another 1/8" or so... and used some good silicon sealant to keep the water out around the hole.

Here are some pics of what it looks like - will be interesting to see if it helps.. also expect it to mess up my depth finder at speed too (causing some bubbles or turbulence may disturb it.. but it didn't really work at speed anyway once the wheel was originally installed ahead of it)

I rough cut the material down, then used a pneumatic die grinder with 120 grit flap sanding wheel to shape.. and smoothed by hand with 100grit. It worked really easily and shaped up fairly well (or good enough I think)

[SacRiverRat]

Sorry about the blurry pic in the first one... and yes - my centerline marks are slightly off.. but got the wheel aligned with the centerline.

[WakeGirl]

So the question is, if it works well & solves the problem, are you interested in making another?

[SacRiverRat]

So the question is, if it works well & solves the problem, are you interested in making another? 

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I'm trying not to get too excited about it until I see if it works. I'll have it out tomorrow with Stewart - so we'll give it a run for its money... It didn't cost me much - in labor or materials, but seemed like it would be worth a try - might just work!

[WakeGirl]

I'll anxiously await your report, & cross my fingers & toes for you for good luck.