Hydrodyne Ridesteady GPS

So, one thing I always wanted when I had my Prostar 190 was perfect pass. Always have someone different driving me (buddies) or my fiance, who hates driving me because she doesnt wanna give me a bad pull. Most of the time ended up getting a horrible pull(speed fluctuations of about 4-6mph). Needless to say, when I got my 94 Sanger DXII, one of the first upgrades on my list was Perfect Pass. Was initially going to get Perfect Pass Stargazer Wake Edition, and started doing a ton of reading on that, Zero Off and Hydrophase. While I occassionally slalom ski, and sometimes pull people that slalom most of the use will be for wakeboarding and barefooting...

After a discussion with Hydrophase (Justin) on the phone, sounded like a great company, and didnt even try and upsell me on the paddle wheel, which was the main reason for the call, I ordered it all up.. Shipped the same day I ordered it, and a few days later showed up to my house.

Now for the fun part, hooking it all up...

Heres a pic of the stock dash and linkage...



Servo motor installs using the hose clamps for the exhaust..


Throttle linkage all hooked up with the servo.


Done in the motor compartment.... For now...


After the old airguide tube and pickup have been removed, new temp sensor ran through the hull.


Water temp sensor in place. Extra holes are currently siliconed, but will be gelcoated, once I can match the white gelcoat...


Take the temp sensor wires to the tube for the old speedo gauge and pull through the hull, a few minutes later, you end up tih your temp sensor wire up under the dash where you need it.


I removed the stock mirror that you couldn't see anything out of, and put on a better mirror thats window mounted, that being said there was some holes on the dash. Perfect spot to route wires through for the GPS antenna.


Remove speedo (I chose rt side, but you could do either), and install pretty shinny new Hydrophase relationship saver...


Next task is to mount the CPU. There is a fiberglass cover under the dash that goes over cables where they go into the floor, stays dry and keeps stuff out of the way. Perfect...


Now have to route the cable signal wire from the CPU to the motor. Decided to start on the motor end, attached connector, and routed alongside the throttle cable so it looked clean and out of the way.



Wire in the front of the engine bay, attached to bailing wire thats pulled through the floor in the other side where the CPU is, ready for the pull.


Now, time to hook up all the power and signal wires. Used the ignition terminal to tie off for the constant (solid red) and the switched power (purple).


There is also a wire that needs to be hooked up to the dash lights (to adjust the LCD display when the dash lights are turned on). The blue wire is what my Sanger uses. Tied in on the busbar.


Last is RPM, gray wire is the target here, jsut attached using the post on the back of the tachometer.


Everything plugged in and mounted, ready to turn they key and see what happens.


Everything powered up like it was supposed to. Ran through the systems tests it suggested and everything worked perfectly. Did some of my settings for the main riders (me and my fiance). Created a profile for myself for slalom skiing, wakeboarding and barefooting. Decided to try using the RPM setting for barefooting, as it was suggested it would be a little smoother. Also turned down how hard the Ridesteady corrects to keep speed. Left defaults for the slalom and wakeboarding and using GPS based speed control. I was amazed at how fast it grabbed GPS signal (5-10 seconds), this was the first time it started up, and was inside my shop, which also has lots of tree cover...

Heres a pic of the dash all done, you can see the GPS reciever sitting there.


As for the water test. Pulled absolutely amazing wakeboarding, no more slowing down the boat while cutting out, constant speed, Im in heaven. Not to mention the misses is extremely happy that all she really needs to worry about is steering the boat . Less stress for the driver, more time watching the rider and whats up ahead. Want to mention that I have a "tournament ski" boat, so not a dedicated wakeboard boat, its designed to be plained out and cruising at 30+ mph. That being said at wakeboard speed (17-22 depending on whos being pulled) its super hard to keep my boat at a constant speed for the driver, this handles it without a qualm.

Barefooting it was a good pull, not nearly as hard as pulling a boarder, as the speed is pretty constant as Im not doing any tricks or anything fancy...

Havent had a chance to slalom ski behind it yet, and Im not good enough to really slow the boat down. Hopefully in a few weeks will get some good slalom skiers behind it to see how it does, I will post results.

Anyways, long winded and pic heavy, but hopefully this can help anybody looking at speed control solution for their boat as a good alternative. Price was good, not to mention I got the water and air temp. Plus if you take pics of your install the give you $100 back...

Im an idiot, just realized I got the name in the title wrong.. haha.. Hydrophase, not Hydrodyne. It was rt in the rest of the post. Ooops, anybody know how to modify the title?

Thanks for sharing. Looks great. Do you run the river much, or just lakes? I'm on the fence what model I want. The river is where I spend most of my time but it's pretty slow... 2-5mph???

Rivers prolly about 70% of the time. Most of them arent fast flowing, about what you mentioned in terms of speed. You can get the paddlewheel and choose between paddle or GPS, which is why I had called them... Decided not to just for the reason of, with the knob, its so easy to adjust speed, literally, slight turn of the know and your compensating for the up or downflow of the river. You can also change the settings so that it remembers it or doesnt, so say you have "Jimmy-WKBD", and i normally ride at 21 mph (still body of water), I can set it so that maybe I want 20.5 and the driver adjust it then it memorizes the setting for anytime "Jimmy-WKBD" comes up again or you can turn the remember speed setting off, so that say we are going up river (flowing at 3mph), it will run you at 24, but next time your up, and your profile is selected it reverts to your default 21, so then if your going down river, the driver can adjust speed on the knob to 18...

I'm very happy with my Ridesteady as well. It takes some time to get the settings right for different amounts of ballast on my Sanger V215, but play a little and you'll be so happy you got it.

Originally Posted by bbnight3

I'm very happy with my Ridesteady as well. It takes some time to get the settings right for different amounts of ballast on my Sanger V215, but play a little and you'll be so happy you got it.

Dont run any ballast yet. Was thinking about popping the floor up this winter and seeing if I can glass tanks in between the stringers so that there would be a port and starboard tank, dont really wanna lose any real estate inside the boat since its a DD and closed bow...

Looking at your water temp sensor, I imagine you only get water temp at idle?

Originally Posted by SESanger

Looking at your water temp sensor, I imagine you only get water temp at idle?

Well while the boat is stopped because its on the back of the transom. When the boats moving the temp goes up a little (about 5 degrees over water temp). On hot days its not super accurate anyways jsut because normally the top 12" of water are warmer than the rest. But it gets you ballpark on the temp.

So, little update...

Been putting some hours on the unit, and switched it from RPM based to GPS for barefooting. Seemed to work great. Had the driver pull me up to about 34-35mph for butt skiing (had the unit set at 39), when my feet came off the rope to plant told the driver (not experienced) just to floor it, Ridesteady took over and kept it at 39, planted and got a great pull. Definitely gives you a great pull regardless of who’s driving.

Little more feed back… Work great for slalom too, doesnt have any of the stuff (magnets) for running a course, but keeps the speed steady, specially with a good skier who can really slow the boat down. Had a tournament level skier, skiing at 22 off, running behind the boat, had it set GPS at 35mph, fluctuated from 34.6 to 35.4mpn while cutting, said it was the best pull he’s had behind my boat!