Well for a few years now I have been looking for the Kyosho RC surfer and it is next to impossible to find. From time to time I see them on eBay but for way more than I want to spend. I kept hoping that Kyosho would re-release it or maybe some other company would get the designs and manufacture it again. Well I came across this and it looks very similar to Kyosho's version but I don't know whats inside the thing.Here is the description:A great gift for ages 8 Years - Adult Rip it up in a pool, lake, or pond!
Rc Surfer Site- Kyosho's Surfer Lisa Modifications WAVE BLASTERS OF FLORIDA. US Dealers & Manufactures Aeromarine Laminates- Rc Model Boats & Accessories AeroMarineResearch- Real Tunnel Boat 'How to Info' Airtronics- Radio control transmitters & receivers Aquacraft Models Blew by You Boat Works-Scat Cat & Oval Master Hulls.
From up to 200 feet, you can control the direction and speed of this R/C surfer. He's unsinkable, self-correcting, self propelled and features special 'automatic return' technology.Surfboard includes a high-power motor with propeller. Radio controller has three channels per frequency. Comes ready to run right out of the box.
Set includes two additional propellers, rechargeable batteries and charger, 9V battery and controller. Measures 25' x 13'.
Colors may vary.So as you can see from that description that it has a lot of the same features as the Kyosho surfer. If anyone has one. What are your thoughts on it? Did or can you upgrade the motor and prop?If anyone is curious I'm really considering getting one and cracking it open and test driving it. At least I can return it if I'm not happy.Here is a link.
Would be nice to have auto return with movie rentals too!! Well I bought one. Only had 3 to choose from. 1 had his head broken off. I almost bought it and put a pumpkin on it for a head.
The other had some weird looking spot on his neck. Looked like he had a hickey or cigar burn LOL. So instead of blue I bought the only other color.
Right now its still boxed up. Good thing we got a full moon. Cause Im driving this tonight come hell or high water.
Of course I can't find the digital camera right now :@. So hang tight anyone who is curious. I wanna get pics of it in the box so this is really killing me.
Well off to the camera hunt. ORIGINAL: KmotYes, pics and video! Even if you video it in your living room. LOL ok here are some pics. After looking at some pics of the kyosho RC surfer. I am almost 100% positive this is the same thing only slightly different.
I am rather impressed with the quality. It is water cooled.ooks like a 540 but I put it in the bath tub and held the front. MAN this thing is gonna run pretty quick!!! It actually was pushing hard against my hand and the wake behind the surfer splashed up against the tub and water went up about 5 or 6 inches. The surfer was in the middle of the tub.
The prop only spins when in the water (safety feature). At first I didn't like the way the guy leaned but after taking it out of the box it really adds more realism to the surfer.
Comes with a 8.4v 2000mAh Ni-Cd (:'( Ni-Cd) As far as the electronics go they are a little better than what you would find in most Walmart or Radio shack type of RC products. But again the power is there so I can get used to the cheaper radio and ESC.
It would be easy to remove everything and use your own radio but you would loose the auto return feature and would have to rig a way to make the surfer lean or not have him lean at all. The rudder can be adjusted at the push rod and rudder junction. It seems to be sealed very good too. The motor is water cooled. I'm not going to drive it tonight cause I don't really feel like fight off the neighbor's dog with my airsoft pistol LOL!!! I forgot he runs loose at night. I live outside the city limits so people get irresponsible with animals and guns around here LOL!!!
It came with some spare parts as well. I thought about buying one more for parts if needed. I got mine from Walmart and used a friend's discount card so it was around $77 after the discount. If anyone has questions or wants pics of specific areas of the surfer.
Feel free to ask and I'll try to get them posted ASAP. I'll try to video it tomorrow.
Then figure out a way to post video. Never posted a video before.Here are some pics of the Board Sharks Surfer. Man I'm dying to run this thing!!!
I'll get videos for those who want to see the speed and performance. It will be in a small pond, but I may even drive down to the coast and run it in the waves. We never get waves more than 3 to 4 feet at the shore. Unless a Katrina or Rita are coming this way!!
It says not to operate it in waves higher than 5 feet. So at least expect a video in the pond. We'll see about the beach.
Maybe next weekend. I'm really wanting to see it at the beach!!! LOLI just read another forum and a guy has the Kyosho and the Board Shark. He already modified it and says the one from Walmart is just a good as the Kyosho.
My girlfriend bought me one for valentines day. I had been looking at the kyosho kit too, but too few out there and way too much. Metal dog is on the right track. I think the Hull is workable and think the leaning of the surfer is goint to have to go away. His joints will break in the surf.
Keep the updates coming Metaldog. Took mine out to a pond and was not impressed with the speed.
I live next to a river with a small spillway that has a 1 foot standing wave that you can ride on your stomach not big enough to surf but i am going to see if this will surf it. I had the Kyosho version many years ago, but after a month or so of constant use and lack of a good seal, saltwater eventually got the best of the electronics and I never replaced them. I'm not much of an RC guy, my dad is a big RC plane guy and he put the Kyosho version together for me. I am an avid surfer though, but the poor / small waves in central Florida where I live make it hard to surf much, but they are perfect size for an RC Surfer. I've actually gone through two of the new Boardsharks RC Surfers from Walmart already in the past two months. I found it to be too slow as well, but I replaced the prop with an Octura X432 copper prop, which is one size bigger than the cheap plastic prop it comes with.
I also got two new battery packs, a 8.4v 4200 Nimh and a 8.4v 3500 Nimh pack. The combination of the bigger prop and the bigger battery made it much faster and plenty fast for me.
I also was getting close to 30 minute run times, about double what I was getting out of the battery it came with. The Boardsharks Surfer looks much more realistic surfing the waves with the moving body. This thing absolutley looks real!! The Kyosho version always looked kind of stiff and a bit unrealistic to me. I've been able to pull off some way better maneuvers that look much more realistic than the Kyosho version.Now for the bad news. At first, the seal was really good and for the first 10 or so uses, hardly a drop of water got inside the compartment. One time I noticed the foam tape was peeling up a little bit at the front of the compartment, but I didn't really think anything of it because I had just used it and no water got in.
Next use, that's all she wrote. A good amount of salt water flooded the compartment and some of the circuits on the back of the engine completey coroded and fell off the engine. I tried to fix it, but like I said, I'm not much of an RC guy, and the electronics on this thing are just too complicated and frustrating to me. At this point, I was addicted to the thing, so I went out and bought another one.
This time I sent in the warranty to the company that makes it. The new one I bought worked great for two times, then out of the blue, the compartment flooded with water again. The seal looked fine and I know I screwed in the bolts good, so I cannot figure out how it flooded. Anyway, I went home and immediately rinsed the compartment out with fresh water (at least it is better than salt water I thought). I tested it to see if it still worked, and it was fine. Then we had rideble waves here for two weeks (too big for RC guy). When it finally got small again a couple of days ago, I tried to take the RC Surfer back out, but no go, he's dead again.
This time the engine still works, but the servo is fried. Damn saltwater. Any tips from you guys for keeping water out / making the seal better??I called the company today to claim the warranty and they told me to fax a copy of the receipt to them with my name, address and phone # and they would send out a new one to me right away, no questions asked. They said I didn't even have to send mine back to them. Today was killing me, this morning had perfect 2-3 foot peelers with offshore winds, perfect for RC guy. I envy you guys that can modify and fix these things.By the way, a friend of mine that lives in Rhode Island knows the guy who came up with this version of the RC surfer and sold it to the toy company (Planet Toys) apparently for a good sum of money. Supposedly he is doing a skateboard and snowboard version as well under the Boardsharks name.
Anybody figure out the mods on this one. I dropped a 19 turn komodo in this guy with the existing electronics.
It flew for about ten minutes until it burnt up the on off switches. I noticed with the new motor the comonds on the t/x were opposite. Pulling back on the trigger you would go in reverse and pushing the trigger foward you would go foward. Where with the original motor they were the exact opposite. I dont know if this had anything to do with the electrics cooking.
But he flew while it lasted punching through the surf much faster and easily.I would like to put in a new esc but I dont want to lose the body turning feature. This guy does not right himself as well as a kyosho and turning the body and holding while he is down helps him pop back up quicker. The servo/control for the rudder and guy has a pair of wires(blue and green) which control the rudder.
Then a set of four(black, yellow, green, red) which im guessing work the guy. Anybody know how to make these work? I was impressed too because the thing had no water inside.
I finished my mod to it. I used a 2 channel radio and still have the twist of the surfer. I went with a 20T duratrax photon because it was cheap on ebay. I also used the existing water cooling for the stock motor because the Photon is a short can motor so it worked out well. I picked up a few Y shaped fittings for automatic sprinkler systems (drip irrigation type) and split the incoming and outgoing water lines and added a traxxas water cooled heatsink for my ESC.
I had no problems at all with leaks or overheating. My biggest problem is finding time to go to the beach!!!
Hey MetaldogI got the boardsharks also and was wondering if you could help out with some questions about the mods? Did you use the r/x it comes with or get a new one? What about the servo. Did you use the existing servo?
If so where do the wires hook into to. The existing servo has a pair (blue and green on mine) and a set of four (red, yellow, green and, black).I put a 19 turn komodo in mine and it burnt up the electronics. So I know I need a new esc and Reciever. Just not sure about how to wire in the servo. Any help would be greatly appreciated.Thanks. I used a low-profile servo to save space.
I connected the existing pushrod from the rudder to that and another push rod to the guy. I removed the gearbox that was acting as the servo. I cut that gearbox thing so that the hex shaped part that turns the surfer's body was still mounted inside and crafted a push rod to move the body via a small hole drilled into the gear of the hex part. I'm considering gluing a piece of plastic to that hex part instead so that the push rod is not in such a weird fashion.
But its working so until it breaks I'm not too concerned. I did have to use a different RX and TX and I have it stuck to the lid part and used clear silicon to seal the hole that the antenna wire runs through. For the esc I'm using an old novak rooster with a Traxxas water cooler that is feed water by tapping into the incoming and outgoing motor cooling lines. My nephew has the surfer right now and I think I'm gonna sell it to him and modify another one. I had a red one and wanted blue, now they have a blue one in stock. (My girlfriend works for WalMart so I get a 10% discount and that pretty much takes away sales tax and about 2.6% lower than the marked price.) When I modify the new one I'm gonna take pics. Also I'm using my existing NiMH 3300 6 cell batt packs and it works great.
I wish I had pics of the mod in progress from start to finish, I only have pics of it out of the box. Like I said the next mod I'll take plenty of pics.
I'll try to get it from him and get pics of the mod, but I'm not sure when I'll be out near his house.heres the water cooler:You will want to get some extra tubing as well. I think HPi or tower's brand is the cheapest. I got the Y connectors at Home Depot in the automatic sprinkler section under the drip irrigation systems.