Ridesteady v1.03 upgrade fulltime engine sync completed

[Ridesteady]

@InmyElement Thanks for the kind words! Yes, both ENG SYNC: FULL and SYNC MSTR: AUTO have to be set in order to have full time engine sync. Sorry for any confusion there!

 

[swatski]

Just tried out the new Version1.03 and its awesome..like stated above just made a great system better! It took me a few minutes to get the settings right for "fulltime engine sync" but figured it out. I was always fiddling with both throttles even adjusting the cables to get the engines synced at various stages of rpms. It gives me that piece of mind and I can concentrate on other things while operating the boat.

I agree, it transforms the experience.
Best thing is, once you set it up no need to do ANYTHING, just operate the throttle as normal, or as sloppy as you please, the system just takes care of the sync. It's awesome!

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[Stevenpigsooie]

@Ridesteady will the engine sync work with ridesteady in the off position or only when using the rpm function?

 

[swatski]

@Ridesteady will the engine sync work with ridesteady in the off position or only when using the rpm function?

With "engine sync full", it works all the time, no need to turn it on (GPS or RPM). It kicks in above certain like 6mph or 4,000RPM or something like that.

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[Stevenpigsooie]

With "engine sync full", it works all the time, no need to turn it on (GPS or RPM). It kicks in above certain like 6mph or 4,000RPM or something like that.

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That’s great. Somehow I missed this during my setup. I was just telling my wife last time we were on the boat that I wished it would do that. I’ve loved RS so far and this makes it even better

 

[Ridesteady]

@Ridesteady will the engine sync work with ridesteady in the off position or only when using the rpm function?

@swatski has it right! If both ENG SYNC: FULL and SYNC MSTR: AUTO are set, engine sync will occur in any mode, including OFF mode, when the speed is above 8 MPH.

 

[mrtoastyjr]

So with this upgrade you can essentially use one throttle to control both engines? I ride in a bunch of chop most of the time in the upper chesapeake bay and making small adjustments is pretty difficult. In my buddies pontoon boat I find myself bracing the butt of my hand on the base of the lever which is impossible with dual throttles. I was going to get the throttle sync from jbp but I've see mixed reviews about them. If this system makes one lever control both engines it my be worth the investment.

 

[djetok]

So with this upgrade you can essentially use one throttle to control both engines? I ride in a bunch of chop most of the time in the upper chesapeake bay and making small adjustments is pretty difficult. In my buddies pontoon boat I find myself bracing the butt of my hand on the base of the lever which is impossible with dual throttles. I was going to get the throttle sync from jbp but I've see mixed reviews about them. If this system makes one lever control both engines it my be worth the investment.

I always just throttle up as normal. the slave engine will sync with the master. I still use both binnacles though. I have never tried to do it as you are suggesting. @Ridesteady could answer it better.

 

[Ridesteady]

So with this upgrade you can essentially use one throttle to control both engines? I ride in a bunch of chop most of the time in the upper chesapeake bay and making small adjustments is pretty difficult. In my buddies pontoon boat I find myself bracing the butt of my hand on the base of the lever which is impossible with dual throttles. I was going to get the throttle sync from jbp but I've see mixed reviews about them. If this system makes one lever control both engines it my be worth the investment.

Ridesteady allows you to push the throttles down and let it take care of the speed management, rotating the knob to change the GPS or RPM set speed. Although it does have engine synchronization, it doesn't allow you to use only one throttle lever for manual control.

 

[swatski]

So with this upgrade you can essentially use one throttle to control both engines? I ride in a bunch of chop most of the time in the upper chesapeake bay and making small adjustments is pretty difficult. In my buddies pontoon boat I find myself bracing the butt of my hand on the base of the lever which is impossible with dual throttles. I was going to get the throttle sync from jbp but I've see mixed reviews about them. If this system makes one lever control both engines it my be worth the investment.

What @Ridesteady said!
You would still use both binnacles but the beauty of it is you do not need to finagle it. Set to "full sync" you can be as sloppy as you want with the throttles and the sync just does the rest for you, it's a GREAT feeling.
When cruising I use RPM control, one way to do it is to push the throttles forward and then adjust speed with the knob.
With my placement I can do it even in roughest water and with gloved hand - I brace my forearm on white coaming by the widnshield and just turn the knob, or grab it/slide over it while standing up:


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[2kwik4u]

@Ridesteady I have a couple questions. Please take these in the spirit intended; pure curiosity. My 8yr old had nightmares last night, and what else did I think about while he was kneeing me in the back at 4am....How does Ridesteady handle these things.........Yea, I'm a odd bird.....anyway, to the questions!

Question #1
When sync'ing the engines, which binacle gets "priority" so to speak? Say Left is at 6350rpm @ 75% throttle and Right is at 6700rpm at 78% throttle. Do you choose the higher throttle or the lower throttle as the one to sync to? Average the two? Proprietary algorithm to balance load or some such thought? Not that real world performance at that level would be noticeable in the drivers seat, I'm just curious on the inner workings/thought process that goes into the selection and methodology.

Question #2
How does your speed/rpm control PID loop handle different throttle mappings. @swatski reports excellent control with his boat. He has flashed his ECM's with a new tune that changes the throttle mapping to a more linear state. Others that have RideSteady without the revised throttle mapping also report excellent control. In my experience with PID loops there is enough variability in just that change that it could throw the loop out of stability. This is especially true in a dual engine going from a dead stop to an 11mph "just off plane" scenario for surfing. I would've expected bigger problems with the revised mapping. Clearly you guys have it figured out, but how?

Question #3
This is just pure support question. If I was to have bought RideSteady before the full engine sync (and if I had a boat with more than one engine), then this feature was released, do you guys offer a firmware upgrade for free? Is there a fee to get the new features? How hard is that process?

If any of these answer are trade secrets, or proprietary information, just say so. No big deal, I'm really just curious how you guys get such good performance from the system considering the number of variables to take into account. I've got my eyes on a single engine system for this years upgrade list on my AR190, hope to be a customer soon!

Thanks!

 

[swatski]

@Ridesteady I have a couple questions. Please take these in the spirit intended; pure curiosity. My 8yr old had nightmares last night, and what else did I think about while he was kneeing me in the back at 4am....How does Ridesteady handle these things.........Yea, I'm a odd bird.....anyway, to the questions!

Question #1
When sync'ing the engines, which binacle gets "priority" so to speak? Say Left is at 6350rpm @ 75% throttle and Right is at 6700rpm at 78% throttle. Do you choose the higher throttle or the lower throttle as the one to sync to? Average the two? Proprietary algorithm to balance load or some such thought? Not that real world performance at that level would be noticeable in the drivers seat, I'm just curious on the inner workings/thought process that goes into the selection and methodology.

Question #2
How does your speed/rpm control PID loop handle different throttle mappings. @swatski reports excellent control with his boat. He has flashed his ECM's with a new tune that changes the throttle mapping to a more linear state. Others that have RideSteady without the revised throttle mapping also report excellent control. In my experience with PID loops there is enough variability in just that change that it could throw the loop out of stability. This is especially true in a dual engine going from a dead stop to an 11mph "just off plane" scenario for surfing. I would've expected bigger problems with the revised mapping. Clearly you guys have it figured out, but how?

Question #3
This is just pure support question. If I was to have bought RideSteady before the full engine sync (and if I had a boat with more than one engine), then this feature was released, do you guys offer a firmware upgrade for free? Is there a fee to get the new features? How hard is that process?

If any of these answer are trade secrets, or proprietary information, just say so. No big deal, I'm really just curious how you guys get such good performance from the system considering the number of variables to take into account. I've got my eyes on a single engine system for this years upgrade list on my AR190, hope to be a customer soon!

Thanks!

I can give some answers to number two and number three questions for you.
As far as mapping, I toggle between factory (backup) running 87 and one of the Riva tunes for my ECU reflash whenever I have access to premium fuel, which comes to about half the time or so.
Zero issues with either using Ride steady, I could not tell which tune I’m running when using it.
As far as firmware upgrade, yes - I think it’s 50 bucks you plug a dongle @Ridesteady sends to you, takes about ten minutes.

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[Ridesteady]

@Ridesteady I have a couple questions. Please take these in the spirit intended; pure curiosity. My 8yr old had nightmares last night, and what else did I think about while he was kneeing me in the back at 4am....How does Ridesteady handle these things.........Yea, I'm a odd bird.....anyway, to the questions!

Question #1
When sync'ing the engines, which binacle gets "priority" so to speak? Say Left is at 6350rpm @ 75% throttle and Right is at 6700rpm at 78% throttle. Do you choose the higher throttle or the lower throttle as the one to sync to? Average the two? Proprietary algorithm to balance load or some such thought? Not that real world performance at that level would be noticeable in the drivers seat, I'm just curious on the inner workings/thought process that goes into the selection and methodology.

Question #2
How does your speed/rpm control PID loop handle different throttle mappings. @swatski reports excellent control with his boat. He has flashed his ECM's with a new tune that changes the throttle mapping to a more linear state. Others that have RideSteady without the revised throttle mapping also report excellent control. In my experience with PID loops there is enough variability in just that change that it could throw the loop out of stability. This is especially true in a dual engine going from a dead stop to an 11mph "just off plane" scenario for surfing. I would've expected bigger problems with the revised mapping. Clearly you guys have it figured out, but how?

Question #3
This is just pure support question. If I was to have bought RideSteady before the full engine sync (and if I had a boat with more than one engine), then this feature was released, do you guys offer a firmware upgrade for free? Is there a fee to get the new features? How hard is that process?

If any of these answer are trade secrets, or proprietary information, just say so. No big deal, I'm really just curious how you guys get such good performance from the system considering the number of variables to take into account. I've got my eyes on a single engine system for this years upgrade list on my AR190, hope to be a customer soon!

Thanks!

Regarding the syncing, the master is set to the one you specify in settings. If it is in "auto" mode, yes, it is a proprietary algorithm. Generally speaking, it doesn't really matter which is master as long as you don't have an engine that is significantly weaker than the other. In that case, you might want to set the master to the weak engine so the strong engine can match it's output.

If a control system is critically stable, then yes, it can go unstable with a disturbance. We have enough margin that we don't see that. The one area where it can get some oscillations (though I can't recall seeing it with our Yamaha testing) is if you're right "in the hole" (i.e. just about to fall off plane, or just about to plane). The system (boat) becomes non-linear here (i.e. it takes significantly more throttle to speed up than a decrease in throttle to slow down). If this were to happen, we'd suggest moving the set speed a bit outside of that area. That shouldn't happen with surf speeds.

We do get comments that the default settings are too aggressive for many of our customers. In that case, simply turning "Response" down from 50 to 25 or less will help smooth things out a bit.

Regarding firmware upgrades, we can send a firmware upgrade "stick", as @swatski mentioned. It's $75 for the current sync upgrade (with a deposit to make sure we get the stick back).

Thanks for your questions and consideration @2kwik4u !

 

[2kwik4u]

@Ridesteady

Thanks for the info. Great answers!

 

[ks9mm]

Regarding the syncing, the master is set to the one you specify in settings. If it is in "auto" mode, yes, it is a proprietary algorithm. Generally speaking, it doesn't really matter which is master as long as you don't have an engine that is significantly weaker than the other. In that case, you might want to set the master to the weak engine so the strong engine can match it's output.

If a control system is critically stable, then yes, it can go unstable with a disturbance. We have enough margin that we don't see that. The one area where it can get some oscillations (though I can't recall seeing it with our Yamaha testing) is if you're right "in the hole" (i.e. just about to fall off plane, or just about to plane). The system (boat) becomes non-linear here (i.e. it takes significantly more throttle to speed up than a decrease in throttle to slow down). If this were to happen, we'd suggest moving the set speed a bit outside of that area. That shouldn't happen with surf speeds.

We do get comments that the default settings are too aggressive for many of our customers. In that case, simply turning "Response" down from 50 to 25 or less will help smooth things out a bit.

Regarding firmware upgrades, we can send a firmware upgrade "stick", as @swatski mentioned. It's $75 for the current sync upgrade (with a deposit to make sure we get the stick back).

Thanks for your questions and consideration @2kwik4u !

Hi Ridesteady.

I’ve read your comment but it’s still not clear to me if your system can help in my case. As a new wakeboarder, my perfect speed is just about 17-19mph. Which is right in that “hole” between on and off plane. My drivers have real hard time keeping boat a that speed steady. And I am not ready for 20+ mph speed! Lol. I am old. So the question is, how will your system deal with this? Also, does it have pre set acceleration curve? To help less experienced driver?

Thanks!

2016 SX 240

 

[swatski]

Hi Ridesteady.

I’ve read your comment but it’s still not clear to me if your system can help in my case. As a new wakeboarder, my perfect speed is just about 17-19mph. Which is right in that “hole” between on and off plane. My drivers have real hard time keeping boat a that speed steady. And I am not ready for 20+ mph speed! Lol. I am old. So the question is, how will your system deal with this? Also, does it have pre set acceleration curve? To help less experienced driver?

Thanks!

2016 SX 240

To tag members use the @ symbol, for example @Ridesteady.

If I could take this question, I would say I'm 100% positive you would like the R-S system and never want to go without it. It is probably more important for wakeboarding in those speed ranges, as those are very difficult to maintain. The R-S does not ramp, but has numerous adjustments for precision and reaction times, we find the ramping manually with the system to be very convenient - you push the throttles some and the system takes over, occasionally asks for more throttle. It is PREFECT for wakeboarding and skiing, and you can adjust the speed on the fly during the set with the knob.

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[Ridesteady]

Hi Ridesteady.

I’ve read your comment but it’s still not clear to me if your system can help in my case. As a new wakeboarder, my perfect speed is just about 17-19mph. Which is right in that “hole” between on and off plane. My drivers have real hard time keeping boat a that speed steady. And I am not ready for 20+ mph speed! Lol. I am old. So the question is, how will your system deal with this? Also, does it have pre set acceleration curve? To help less experienced driver?

Thanks!

2016 SX 240

Hi @ks9mm ,

As @swatski pointed out, Ridesteady has no ramping / acceleration curve functionality. It requires the driver to push the throttles forward to bring up the rider, and it takes over as the boat speed approaches the set speed.

Regarding the 17-19 MPH set speed, I'm very confident that 19 MPH set speed is far enough away from falling off plane that you wouldn't have any issue. And pretty confident that you still wouldn't fall off at 18 MPH. 17 MPH I think would still be fine, but it depends on how much weight you have in the boat, how hard you pull on the rope, how you have Ridesteady set, etc., so it's hard to say with certainty that it wouldn't fall off plane at that set speed. Though as I said, my belief is that you'd still be okay there. Worst case you'd have to adjust the set speed up a bit.

 

[J-RAD]

Hi Ridesteady.

I’ve read your comment but it’s still not clear to me if your system can help in my case. As a new wakeboarder, my perfect speed is just about 17-19mph. Which is right in that “hole” between on and off plane. My drivers have real hard time keeping boat a that speed steady. And I am not ready for 20+ mph speed! Lol. I am old. So the question is, how will your system deal with this? Also, does it have pre set acceleration curve? To help less experienced driver?

Thanks!

2016 SX 240

It should maintain that magic number for you no problem and after a few pulls your novice driver will have full confidence in pulling you up and giving you a perfect run every time.

In fact, if its your wife you're talking about. She'll probably be like mine and turn arrogant... thinking she's the better driver... lol!

 

[ks9mm]

Thanks All! Hopefully will get installed early next season.

My wife refuses to drive the boat... but my 16 year old is happy to be at the wheel.

 

[PeterB]

We use the ride steady at those speeds often and it holds perfectly- not worrying about the speed keeps everyone on the boat calm and happy! Best upgrade we’ve added! The upgraded all time engine sync has added even more to what was already a great addition to our boat.