New Hobby King Cat (Surge Crusher)

[NOZ69R]

hope this will be a good boat. im waiting for mine on the mail and will post up pics and specs of the electronics it has.

Hope so, I just put an order in for one too.

Cheers

[nomobux]

It really suits my budget too, I'm glad I found this thread as before I spend my lousy allowance I get from my "Minister for War, Peace & Finances" I wanted to get some feedback on how it goes.

Although I'm not intending to race competively more just a bunch of mates having fun, I still want something half decent and I know you only get what you pay for.

Cheers

Half decent may be better than a EKOS !!!

[electric]

Mine has finally arrived. Going to pick it up at the Post Office this afternoon. I will take some pics and then hook up a data logger to it and take it out for a run with Lipo's and see what it does out of the box.

[Karfrik]

Wuhuuuuuu!!!!.......Al

[Basstronics]

Mine has finally arrived. Going to pick it up at the Post Office this afternoon. I will take some pics and then hook up a data logger to it and take it out for a run with Lipo's and see what it does out of the box.

Nice.

I wasnt able to order mine, pesky bills...

Hopefully end of the month I can.

[electric]

I got the boat and just had enough time to open it and look it over. Here are my first impressions:
1. It almost looks like it is made of plastic, but then you look inside it is glass but has a really strong smell.
2. The finish is poor with many blemishes
3. The boat is kinda transparent and the color looks a little uneven because of that.
4. Check out the drive shaft, it is just plastic tubing underneath
5. Actually had a small manual and extra parts!
6. Funny mount on back, you have that screw sticking up as a grab handle to the left of the hatch and the other item screws down to hold the hatch.
7. Looks like you get about 138 dollars worth of boat.

Which is to say, hey if it runs it can still be alot a fun for not much money. This was purchased for my son and I think it will be perfect for that. Here are some pics. Check out the box it came in. Scary, shocked that it made it in one piece. If you are thinking you are getting something like a UL1 or SV there is no comparison.

More to come tomorrow, I will put the fins on and test it in the tube for leaks and then possibly Friday or Saturday run it with the logger on.

[electric]

more pics

[electric]

Last pics for the night. I will add more tomorrow...good night.

[vasy]

What drive shaft is it, 4mm?

[NOZ69R]

Thanks electric, great first impressions.

I was ordering mine via my local hobby store which today was having trouble so I cancelled.

So now I'll wait for your report on how it runs before I make up my mind.

The price really grabbed me....but like the old saying "You get what you pay for"

Cheers

[hpipro4]

boat looks good...cant wait to see how it performs! thnx for the awesome pics electric

wow they charged soo much on shipping and doesnt look like they do a good job packaging...haha

[Basstronics]

If you could, get us a few pics of the motor.

It was believed to be one of the new leopard hobbies motor?

Sounds like the quality is in line with the 25" Prince Head of the River type hulls. The description could be the same. I reinforced with CF.

[electric]

Re-read what I wrote last night(was pretty tired when I wrote it up), but still feel it is pretty accurate assesment. I guess you could say from two feet away it looks like a pretty good boat? I noticed it still looks pretty good in the pictures. Really, for 138 bucks, you get a basic boat, servo, esc, brushless motor, hardware and stand. Still pretty impressive. Now if it just melts down on the first run, not so good a deal. Of course, there is shipping so it is more like 180's. I will get more pics of the motor and do some initial bench testing. Not sure what size the shaft is? How would I measure that? I can take an SV shaft and see how it fits in there...

On the packaging. Look at the picture. They took the original box and turned it inside out and made it the internal box, and then put a stronger box around that. The deal is there was no gap between the two boxes and almost NO stuffing. I was really surprised it came in one piece.

[electric]

Finished setting up the boat for testing tomorrow. The first thing I am going to do is attempt to describe the drive shaft assembly. Strangest thing I have seen in a while. Here are the facts:
1. The drive shaft has to be pushed out toward the motor not pulled out.
2. There is a collet, but it has a hex to screw it to the motor shaft, but the metal drive shaft has a square end and it freefloats inside the collet.
3. To grease the shaft you will have to take off the entire prop assembly, remove the motor and slide it out foward.
4. The good news (looking for the positive) is it was already greased and it does appear to work quite smoothly.
5. Not sure how much grease you would need anyway since it is entirely plastic shaft underneath.
6. I took a picture of the shaft besides and SV shaft (bottom) and a larger (can't remember the diameter 3/16 I think) shaft above.
7. The motor did "sound" really smooth and nice and everything armed properly.

[electric]

Here is diagram showing the drive shaft has to be pushed foward. By the way the instruction manual is very clear and well done. There are some close ups of the motor as well. Thought I would show you the size difference compared to a UL-1. Also notice the "Shine" coming off of the UL-1 in comparison. The Surge has a dull finish. I also should mention that I float tested it and there were NO leaks.