Tantrum Wireless Control Review.

[mmandley]

Hey fellow SC family peeps.

A couple months ago Tantrum posted on the forum about their speed control device and wanted someone to try it out.

I was lucky to be chosen and wanted to give some feed back on the device and how it works.

First, contact with them has been great. They have always gotten right back to me when i ask them a question, this shows they care about their customer service.

Second, Shipping was fast, I had the equipment within a few days.

After I spoke to them to verify my boat had the setup they could use on the wireless controller they shipped it out, also in the package was a controller for wake boarders.

It came with a Surf style rope, slightly larger handle then say a Ronix surf rope. That rope has a controller mounted to it, then a separate controller, with an arm band holder. Last part was the controller for the boat.

System is real easy to install, it has a pigtail connector to plus in-between the boats controller. Just unhook the boats harness, plug the tantrum in-between.

Then connect it to the + and - bus bars for power and ground.

It also comes with a simple programming document.

On to the actual testing of the device.

We went out surfing a few days later and the Surf device works great. It will speed the boat up and slow it down. You have to be careful with the slowing down because it will slow you down a lot faster then it will speed you up. I think this is a safety issue they built in to stop the boat from running away even though the driver always has the option to kill the throttle.

Plus side of the Surf system is the rider can just adjust the speed them selves. Sometimes depending on your rider they like a slightly faster or slower speed. Sometimes they think the drivers isn't adjusting the speed when they request it.

This stops all of that and lets the driver drive, and the surfer control their speed.

Complaints I have, the controller is zip tied to the rope, so when your rider lets go of the rope they have no more control of speed.

Other complaints where when you pull the rope in you need to be careful because the controller hits the back of the boat, it can damage the boat or the controller. We personally paid attention to this but its still a concern we had.

For the Wake Board controller, it has an arm band that the controller fits in and you Velcro it to your arm.

I found the wake boarders liked the speed control the best. This way they truly can set the speed they like. You can see the ole up and down hand signals in the boat but this makes it so much easier at the end of a line to speed the boat up and down to fit your speed comfort.

Only negative i heard about the wake board device is the size of the controller. It feels bulky, and not everyone liked it being on their arm. Other then that people liked it a lot.

Over all I think the Tantrum set up is really good. My main feedback I gave them personally was smaller controllers, something more the size of the Go Pro remotes and I think they would have a 100% killer product to benefit the riders. Right now I would rank them at 90% due to the bulky controller.

[kaneboats]

Good stuff. Never thought about controlling surf speed after you toss the rope in.

[mmandley]

Good stuff. Never thought about controlling surf speed after you toss the rope in.

Me either but when we are on the River and turn around you do have to speed up or slow down slightly to adjust for water current.

[sivs1]

Another thought on the Zip Tie, the plastic will breakdown overtime. Could you lose the remote if the zip tie broke? Seems like there should be a better way to attaché to the rope.

[sandm]

nice review. looks to be a great product. hope it's not like the rev-matched volume controller that came out, people loved, and now it's gone..
will be interesting to see if they can integrate this into other brands of cruise as well. pretty limited market right now.

[mmandley]

I think the remote might have different distance transmitters in them. I'm not sure. I didn't test the surf one at wake distance. I know when talking to them i asked for an additional one for wake boarding.

[mmandley]

I talked to Tantrum and this is what i would like to do.

If you have a 12-13 Moomba with the digital cruise, NOT THE GPS I would like to let you try this set up yourself and give your feed back.

Basically a Pay it forward deal.

You pay shipping, I will ship you everything they sent me. You try it for a while. Then you post up to ship it to the next person. The next person pays shipping from your location.

This way several people on the forum get to try it and give feed back.

What do you think?

[KG's Supra24]

Are there remotes for each activity? Why not use the arm band for surfing?