AutoWake questions

[goose]

As an engineer, the advice to calibrate on the go seems too dangerous with variability. Wouldn't more a more prudent argument be setting on the trailer still on a good level lot with a long bar level checking across the seats port to starboard? Granted, some folks who store at the lake won't have this chance but at beginning and end of season but if they know that up front.....

BigOrange,

I agree that finding a completely level spot and using a long bar level is a great idea. However, as an engineer, I am sure you are also familiar with design for manufacturability or design for feasibility. Unfortunately, I don't think many people have a completely flat spot where they can assure that the boat is actually level and there is not an easy way to level the actual boat if the boat is not level. I guess you could get a floor jack and try adjusting the trailer to make sure the boat is level, but that isn't very feasible. In our manufacturing plant, we put boats on dollies manually to move through the plant. Because of that, every boat is sitting slightly different on the dolly so the only place we can calibrate it is on the water. We think that is our most consistent place to calibrate it and that is why we do it that way. But the truth is if it is a windy day or if the tester is not paying extra close attention, his calibration can be slightly off. That is why I am recommending everyone check it. In addition to that, in the testing we have done, it actually takes a fairly large change in roll before you actually "feel" the difference in the wave. If the roll is .5 degree off from perfect, it is likely you wouldn't really feel or see the difference. Truth is wind, depth, chop and other variables would be worse than if the roll is not 100% perfect. Plus, the boat actually sees a LOT of movement as the boat runs through the water. We had to do special dampening to the "real" roll values so that the system is not jumping all over the place. Anyways, I probably went to far on all that. Your suggestion is a great one and if people can do that, then it would make the system even more accurate. But I think calibrating on the water when you know the boat really is level should work well for the majority of the users...

[goose]

And we got the best wave with autowake off.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Padge,

Glad you were able to get a good wave without AutoWake. Maybe I have done a bad job in my "selling" of AutoWake. The intent of AutoWake is not to make the "Perfect" wave in terms of tallest, or longest, or best push. AutoWake can NOT take a wave and double it's size or length. As I said before, only displacement can actually make a wave bigger. What AutoWake is designed to do is get you a good consistent wave every time without the frustration of having to change 9 different variables. It is designed to take the intimidation out of wakesurfing and probably is best for non "Advanced" users. If you have been adjusting passenger weight, adding ballast, and finetuning plate settings to get the best wave that way and you are very familiar how to do that, then I would consider you an advanced user and in that case, then I wouldn't be surprised if you got the best wave with AutoWake off. However, in future tips, I can teach you how to use AutoWake to duplicate the best wave every time. If you don't think you need AutoWake, then that is great. But based on all the new owners that we have that do really struggle with just getting a decent wave, we think AutoWake is a great new tool that will make everyone have a great time of the water every day. Hopefully once I explain it better to everyone, we will have even more people that have confidence in it and know how to use it properly. At least that is my goal. Also, I am hoping through this process I will get some feedback about how to even better improve it for the future.... Hope that makes sense.

[goose]

Hey Matt, what are you using for the draft sensors? I've been homebrewing a system that sounds an awful lot like Autowake. I'm using pressure transducers measuring an air tube with the open end held underwater.

Gregski,

While I don't want to give away all our trade secrets, I can tell you that Supra and Moomba actually use 2 different draft sensors. I wouldn't necessarily say one is better than the other, but we actually have 2 different ways to do it. On Supra, we do actually use a version of a pressure transducer. On Moomba, we actually are using a tube that holds a column of water. I will just leave it at that. We also have a patent on the use and design of the draft sensor and how we use it with AutoWake but most people didn't realize that. We actually have several patents when it comes to AutoWake. We don't make a huge deal about sending press release out all the time or beat our chest about how technologically advanced we are. But when it comes to this technology, I would say that we are on the leading edge when it comes to some of the stuff we are doing...

[goose]

Random AutoWake Tip of the day - Why Does AutoWake drain ballast

AutoWake is designed to keep a boat at a consistent pitch or roll. If the boat is not at the correct roll, then it will drain ballast on one side or the other until it sees the correct roll. If the boat is not at the correct pitch, then it will drain ballast in the front to try and achieve a higher pitch. If you don’t want AutoWake to drain ballast, then you can use the actual pitch or roll numbers to tell passengers where to move so that the ballast can stay as full as possible. For 2018, if the system drains more than 20% of ballast in one compartment, then a popup will come up to tell you where to move passengers to better optimize more ballast in the boat.

Where this really becomes a problem is when you start trying to be "smarter" than the system. As I said before, prior to AutoWake, you had to adjust at least 9 variables to get the wave "dialed" for that day. Because of all the years of this, people have gotten in their head that certain things will "ALWAYS" make the wave better. Some have heard that if you just keep adding weight to the side you are surfing it will get better. Some have heard that if just keep adding weight to the rear, the wave will get taller. Some have heard that if you just keep adding weight to the front then the wave will get longer. Some have heard that if you are having a hard time getting a wave, move the flow plate down on the opposite side. While most of that is true most of the time, nothing "ALWAYS" works like you might think. While most will never admit it (including me somedays), a Microprocessor using sensors is actually smarter than all of us. While I consider myself a fairly advanced driver, I don't have an inclinometer in my brain. I don't have a draft sensor either. While I can typically look at a wave and have a general idea of what to adjust to make it better, I don't have a microprocessor that is calculating all the variables and doing the correct adjustment based on constraints and logic. What I have found is many users are using AutoWake to get started, but quickly start adjusting pitch and roll or flow plates because they think they are improving the system. Again, I will get into that later and how you can do that, but before you start doing that, you should make sure you really understand what AutoWake is doing, why it is doing it, and then that will help you learn how to adjust it later. Visualization always helps me, so I will try to explain with an example.

Lets say we are on the lake in a 2018 Mojo with 3000lb ballast system and 5 people. To get the day started, one decides to surf on port side and we turn on AutoWake. After about 6 minutes (because we now have 6 pump ballast system), static mode is achieved at 100% AMP setting. The ballast is 100% full on port side, 90% full on stbd side and 75% full on front. We have started with factory settings of 9 degrees pitch and -3 degrees roll and the flow plates are at factory default of 60% on stbd plate. Before we take off, static settings for that show the boat is currently sitting at .2 degrees pitch and -2.1 degrees roll. We have 1 passenger driving. 1 sitting behind driver, 1 sitting in observer seat and one sitting in port rear seat corner. Boat takes off and luckily static mode and dynamic mode are exactly correct and once boat hits surfing speed, we are AutoWake achieved at 9 degrees pitch and -3 degrees roll. The wave looks pretty good and all is well. But then the person sitting behind driver decides he has heard if he moves to port side, wave will get better. So, he gets up and moves to port lounge seat. If the driver is looking at screen he will notice this changes roll from -3 to -5. At first wave actually is still really good, but actually gets a little steeper. So now the passenger in the rear seat has heard to make the wake not as steep to move weight forward, so he jumps out of his seat and runs to bow. Again, if the driver watches screen, he will notice now the pitch changes from 9 degrees to 8 degrees. The wave does get a little longer and for now, we are better. Truth is 8 and -5 is probably not much different than 9 and -3, but everyone thinks they have improved the wave. However, AutoWake starts adjusting. You have now changed passenger location but not changed pitch and roll so the only thing it knows to do is react. So, AutoWake drains stbd rear ballast to get roll back to -3. It will actually have to drain about 400lbs because the 200lb passenger moving from stbd to port actually made a really big difference. In addition, the front also has to drain about 400lbs to get pitch back to 9. The loss of rear ballast AND passenger moving drastically change that. So, now AutoWake has removed 800lbs of ballast which is equivalent to about 4 people. This loss of ballast drastically changes amount of push, rider loses the wave and falls. Driver turns AutoWake off to see ballast level, realizes AutoWake drained ballast and he starts cussing AutoWake and says it doesn't work. Anyone had an experience like that??

Here is another one I have seen. Same group of 5 people go on lake. They have now heard that someone had a better experience with Flow plates at 85% and with default pitch of 12 and roll of -6. So, before they ever take off, they adjust stbd flow plate to 85%, change pitch to 12 and roll to -6. AutoWake is fine with that, so it adjusts ballast. This time they decide to sit differently. They want to try out the new sliding rear seat so 1 passenger drives, 1 passenger sits in OB seat, and 2 sit in the middle of the boat in the rear facing sliding seat. Because of where people are sitting to get to 12 pitch, the front ballast actually doesn't fill up at all. So NO ballast in the front. Also, to get to -6 roll with passengers sitting evenly the port rear ballast does fill to 100% but the stbd ballast only fills to 30%. In addition to that, with the plates now at 85% and with only about 1300lbs of ballast total, the pitch and roll of 12 and -6 do get achieved, but the extra lift from the plate being down so far basically makes a wave you can see, but has absolutely no push. Again, driver is now frustrated with AutoWake, turns off system, fills all bags manually and swears that AutoWake doesn't work. Anyone had this experience??

In both of these cases, in 2018 as soon as the rear ballast gets less than 80%, a popup will come up to tell you to move passengers to stbd. It didn't do that in 2017, but this is a nice improvement for 2018 to tell you that you are NOT optimizing ballast because of where the passengers are sitting relative to your pitch and roll numbers. Also, on the 2nd case, it will give you a warning that you need to move weight to rear because you have drained all front ballast. So, in order to have an experience like this in 2018, you have to physically tell the system that you don't care that it is draining ballast. While the popups can be frustrating, they will at least tell you know when they have drained more than 20% ballast. Also in both of these cases you have tried to outsmart the system by either making the system better by moving passengers or by adjusting factory defaults. Again, I will eventually talk about advanced users and how to adjust pitch and roll for when you add additional ballast or meet certain levels on the Amplitude bar but for today, the tip is trust the system. Try weighting the boat close to level with passengers. Try using default pitch and roll and flow plate locations. Watch what the system does and gain confidence. Also, try adding additional passengers or ballast and watch how the amplitude bar changes as passengers are added. Make mental notes of what the "Magic Line" is where the wave has good "Push" and then make mental notes of when the amplitude bar is so low that you don't have much push. I really think if you will trust the system and experiment with the new Amplitude Bar then you will find that the factory defaults actually work very well the majority of the time.

I will be completely honest, when we were developing AutoWake I was skeptical that the system could be a better driver than I was. I constantly adjusted pitch and roll and at first I used pitch and roll adjustments like I used to make ballast adjustments or plate adjustments. However, what I found was many times I would adjust the system just to find out I actually didn't make an improvement in overall feel. I would adjust pitch because I thought more pitch had to make the wave taller or give more push, but in reality more times than not that wasn't the case. To get the higher pitch it would typically drain ballast and less displacement actually ended with less push even with higher pitch. Same went for roll. I would think if -3 is good, then -6 HAD to be better. But that wasn't the case. Truth is to maximize push and overall energy of the wave, sometimes a less pitch or less roll actually worked better. With the right amount of displacement, the factory settings of 9 and -3 are really better than a modified setting of 11 pitch and -5 roll, ESPECIALLY if you have more displacement with factory settings and less displacement with "advanced" settings. I really can't stress this enough, there really is no replacement for displacement. If you have 10,000lbs of ballast, then it really doesn't matter what pitch and roll are. Think of the videos you have seen of people surfing behind yachts. It is just a matter of potential energy. With a big enough wave, the face can be all white washed and foamy, but if the wave is big enough, you can still surf some part of it.

Ok, that is all for today. Hopefully everyone will be talking about the New Max the rest of the day. I will try and post another tip before end of the week.

[wolfeman131]

I will try and post another tip before end of the week.

Holy guacamole, there sure is a lot of "tips" for using & understanding AutoWake. I think it's awesome that Matt is giving these detailed rundowns and hope that the dealers are all paying attention. Nothing worse, IMO, than an uneducated/ignorant/lazy salesperson.

[Mobius22]

Hopefully we can get this stickied to the "General" page to get more views! Very useful and important info for everyone.

[wolfeman131]

Hopefully we can get this stickied to the "General" page to get more views! Very useful and important info for everyone.

I'd offer to do that for you, but . . . . .

[Prospersigman]

I know that my salesperson and the guy that took me out on my demo ride right before I bought my SA did not know or share any of this type of information with me.

[Mobius22]

I'd offer to do that for you, but . . . . .

Well... we all know how that can be changed back...

[Pound]

Hey Matt,
How does Autowake work for wakeboarding? is it going to be constantly trying to adjust for roll as the rider pulls out to either side? Or do most people just not use it for wakeboarding?

Also in your last dissertation (kidding, thanks for putting so much time into this) you only mentioned the system draining ballast to achieve its settings. Can it not also transfer ballast between port/starboard etc? that would be more efficient and result in less overall loss of ballast when passengers move around which unfortunately is just part of life on a tow boat most of the time.