Revolt arrived from Tower - Second batch?

[NissanGTR]

I had some problems with my Motley C from the start and wrote a rather critical review about a month ago.

Because Aquacraft had such great customer service I decided to give the Revolt a shot. (Knowing if something went wrong they would take care of me)

After reading about GR's concerns on their first batch of Revolts I decided to wait until the second batch came rolling in. Well..... It looks like I didn't get one from the new batch or they have not changed anything....?

They are still using the tape that leaves glue all over the hull from the factory. It took me 15 minutes to remove it with goo gone and it still looks hazy.
The receiver and speed control were both loose in the boat. They didn't have any Velcro on them... (I put that balloon you see in the pic over the receiver)

The battery tray looks to be the same flimsy thing. Can you guys let me know if the water pickup is correct or if I need to open it up more?

I'm going to remove the flex shaft and make sure nothing is binding. Add a crap load of GR grease and get it out on the water for it's maiden run today. Wish my stock flex shaft luck!

EDIT: My first run was SHORT! The Flex Shaft Broke... weird since it didn't seem to be binding at all before the run. I lost everything to the blue waters of Lake Michigan.

1.jpg2.jpg

[longballlumber]

Based on the Tech Notice, I would pull the water pick-up further forward to the leading edge of the rudder...

http://manuals.hobbico.com/aqu/aqub24-25-tech.pdf

Later,
Mike

[NissanGTR]

That tech notice was not in my box.

[ron1950]

first off let me say id still get a revolt...but....u have to file out the water pick up? all the other things are minor and not a problem to fix.....

[NissanGTR]

So I opened up the water pickup, tightened the rudder screw and was off to the lake.

30 feet into it's maiden the flex shaft broke! NOT AGAIN! Arrrrg. Same thing happened to my MC. I'm out of commission again.... :\

[sturco]

Here's what i did to my new Revolt before it hit the water. After taking everyone's suggestions which were spot on I had a great week of vacation with it at the lake w/o any problems.
1. Per tech notice cleaned up tape & opened up the rudder's water cooling slot.
2. loctite on every pc. of hardware.
3. Epoxied the motor mounts, tube and servo mounts for insurance, no big deal.
4. Installed an OSE upgraded shaft, collet & thrust brg per Steve's suggestions.
5. Set trim tabs with a credtit card (thickness) to bottom of the boat.Left strut alone.
6. Used different velcro for ESC & reciever to mount on.
7. Used a balanced & sharpened 42X55 Grim prop
8. Using cheap Onyx 25C, 2S,5000MAH had a ball.
Hope this helps anyone out. Thanks to a bunch of forum guys and their suggestions, again, "spot on" !
Steve

[alvinm]

SO, instead of RTR, it should be called, RTU (ready to upgrade)

[Mike Caruso]

Here's what i did to my new Revolt before it hit the water. After taking everyone's suggestions which were spot on I had a great week of vacation with it at the lake w/o any problems.
1. Per tech notice cleaned up tape & opened up the rudder's water cooling slot.
2. loctite on every pc. of hardware.
3. Epoxied the motor mounts, tube and servo mounts for insurance, no big deal.
4. Installed an OSE upgraded shaft, collet & thrust brg per Steve's suggestions.
5. Set trim tabs with a credtit card (thickness) to bottom of the boat.Left strut alone.
6. Used different velcro for ESC & reciever to mount on.
7. Used a balanced & sharpened 42X55 Grim prop
8. Using cheap Onyx 25C, 2S,5000MAH had a ball.
Hope this helps anyone out. Thanks to a bunch of forum guys and their suggestions, again, "spot on" !
Steve

Steve
Good work you steps should help the new PERSON (S) getting into boats. It makes for a happier day at the water. My cable drive itself was made from very stiff wire. It held its shape of the stuffing box tube when removed HA. No suprise it snap's replacing with Hughey cable. Buy the latest and newest it is an unwritten rule you will have some issue's. Small price to pay to be FAST.
Mike
Unless your in the lead....the view never changes!

[stumblinh]

Here's what i did to my new Revolt before it hit the water. After taking everyone's suggestions which were spot on I had a great week of vacation with it at the lake w/o any problems.
1. Per tech notice cleaned up tape & opened up the rudder's water cooling slot.
2. loctite on every pc. of hardware.
3. Epoxied the motor mounts, tube and servo mounts for insurance, no big deal.
4. Installed an OSE upgraded shaft, collet & thrust brg per Steve's suggestions.
5. Set trim tabs with a credtit card (thickness) to bottom of the boat.Left strut alone.
6. Used different velcro for ESC & reciever to mount on.
7. Used a balanced & sharpened 42X55 Grim prop
8. Using cheap Onyx 25C, 2S,5000MAH had a ball.
Hope this helps anyone out. Thanks to a bunch of forum guys and their suggestions, again, "spot on" !
Steve

What were the part #'s on the OSE upgrade shaft, collet & thrust brg? Thanks!!! How was speed on the 42x55 would a 47/50 be faster?

thanks

[sturco]

Part numbers are here on OSE "part" under the Revolt.
Cable is, "ose-revolt-cbl"
Bearing is, "dh 53136"
I didn't have a GPS for speed checks and only used the 42X55. Also, if you do that cable and bearing do the upgraded collet OSE sells ,huge difference.

[NissanGTR]

Here is an update. NOT HAPPY

I still have not had a chance to run the Revolt more than 20 feet.

I waited a week and a half to receive parts from aquacraft but they didn't send me all that was needed even thought I was very thorough in my email regarding what parts were needed.

After I brought this to their attention they said the additional parts would go out "this week".

Sucks for me. It's been three weeks and I still haven not had a chance to run this thing. Now I have to possibly wait another two weeks before I can.

At the end of the summer I am selling it and going to move on the another manufacturer. I'm done with Aquacraft.

[arp1500]

this is way im leaning more towards proboat
i tried a aqua craft about 2 years ago and its first outing barrel rolled and crack the hull
call them they said operator error to fast of a roll in water i said its a brushed boat with a single 8 cell nimh how fast could have it been going

i cleaned it up and shipped it back to tower and got a full refund

[PatrickM]

align1.jpgMy Revolt came with a seriously misaligned motor to stuffing tube issue. It took a lot of motor mount and tube tweaking to get the alignment even close. It's still off quite a bit but much better than the factory crap. I tossed the factory cable (unusable due to a kink where it was forced into the misaligned motor connector) and the out of round flex adapter, replacing them with Steve's cable and an Octura flex hex. Attached is a pic showing the severity of the misalignment.

[arp1500]

how can big company's let garbage like that even get to its customers
and if they tightened up quality control maybe people wouldn't have so many problems

[Grimracer]

align1.jpgMy Revolt came with a seriously misaligned motor to stuffing tube issue. It took a lot of motor mount and tube tweaking to get the alignment even close. It's still off quite a bit but much better than the factory crap. I tossed the factory cable (unusable due to a kink where it was forced into the misaligned motor connector) and the out of round flex adapter, replacing them with Steve's cable and an Octura flex hex. Attached is a pic showing the severity of the misalignment.

I wanta better understand.

Kink in the cable? Do you have a pic of this. Help me understand what looks like a kinked cable to you? Not trying to be a smart azz here I really need to know to try to make our products better.

Next. For some reasion I just am not seeing the "seriously misaligned motor to stuffing tube" I know that can be hard to show in the pic but it is an "up and down" alignment issue?

Thanks

Grimracer

[PatrickM]

Mike-
The kink is about a 5 degree (maybe more, I didn't put protractor on it) bend in the cable where it exits the coupling. The up and down was not as drastically misaligned as the side to side issue. The pic view is looking directly down (90 degree) on the boat. Both the motor shaft and the stuffing tube are angled to right side of the hull forming a 5 degree or more angle between the motor and stuffing tube. It would appear that the motor was installed and then the stuffing tube rotated to the right in an attempt match the motor shaft position. I can send you the cable if you'd like, but I've put too much effort into the hull to return it at this point. Feel free to e-mail me at lightzpro@cox.net

[Grimracer]

what i am taking from this is the motor (mount) is mounted crooked in the hull and the MFG attempted to "bend"? or rotate the stuffing tube to align the parts.

The parts did not align so they forced the fit.

Do you feel if the MFG would have at least gotten the parts to align it would have worked OK regardless of the position of the motor mount?

Grim

[PatrickM]

cable1.jpg

what i am taking from this is the motor (mount) is mounted crooked in the hull and the MFG attempted to "bend"? or rotate the stuffing tube to align the parts.

The parts did not align so they forced the fit.

Grim

Precisely!.....
Did some quick measurements (kinda tough to do with any precision with everything installed) and it appears that the stuffing tube is intentionally offset to the right about 6mm from the hull centerline. The aft inside corners of the wood motor mount blocks are also offset to the right but their centerline is closer to about 8mm from the hull center and at a very slight angle. This misalignment with the stuffing tube probably forced the assembler to skew the stuffing tube by rotating the up-angled forward end around the prop shaft axis to bring it closer to the vertical center line of the coupler.... the assumption here being that the stuffing tube is potted in place with the motor, coupler and cable in place.

Not sure what you mean by "regardless of the position of the motor mount"..... if the motor mount (motor shaft axis) is not positioned somewhat in line with the centerline of the stuffing tube, it won't be possible to align the goodies.... flex cable and rubber grommets won't be much help. Maybe the assemblers need some sort of fixture to position these components in relation to each other during the bonding and installation process.... but then you already know all this stuff...

Attached is a pic of the kink in the cable...

[joker rc]

Removed by Steven V. not usefull to the solution.

[Doby]

[stumblinh]

Here is an update. NOT HAPPY

I still have not had a chance to run the Revolt more than 20 feet.

I waited a week and a half to receive parts from aquacraft but they didn't send me all the parts needed even thought I was very thorough in my email regarding what parts were needed.

After I brought this to their attention they said the additional parts would go out "this week".

Sucks for me. It's been three weeks and I still haven not had a chance to run this thing. Now I have to possibly wait another two weeks before I can.

At the end of the summer I am selling it and going to move on the another manufacturer. I'm done with Aquacraft.

Wow granted revisions may have been made in production, my unit so far is great. The Revolt 30 was a recommend from a few friends who have them, did some reading in the forums and figured it was a good choice. Really sound build, upon arrival I just did a few things..

1) used some shoegoo to add some strength (awesome stuff) around the motor mount blocks.
2) installed a traxxas tqi 5channel rx and waterproof box (used clear rtv sealer to hold it in place (also awesome)
3) Took the aweful deans off and did bullets to direct plug into my lipo's (way less issues and resistance)
4) Used some of the packing foam parts to make battery spacers (taped packing tape around to add some life)
5) Checked all screws for tightness, did not remove and thread lock.
6) Did not clean the glue, lol, did not widen the intake

Thoughts.. sweet out of the box boat, I need to dial in my controller a little and adjust the location of my lipo's, she was a little "wiggly" up at top speed even when holding a line. The nano-tech 6600mAH 2s race packs I used held up great, pretty warm but they should do the job nice. I have a couple larger props on order and this thing is BEGGING for a bigger prop.. motor was cold to the touch after running hard after both the first set of packs and the second set. Actually ESC and Motor were cold.. only thing remotely warm were the lipo's. I was going to go crazy w/ 6s lipo's and other upgrades but I'm pretty darn happy. I did order the ose upgrade parts, but those will be installed at a later date, stock parts seem to be pretty good, luckly everything lines up nice and seems of good quality.

After the first run; things still all look good on the hardware.. the prop nut was backing off and the grub pin was a little loose too.. so warning to all, use some thread locker on BOTH :) I had no damage and caught it all in time. Worked up an audiance and they all loved the boat and the water kick up ;P

mass produced junk you want a good boat build it yourself

That is only true if you have some skills :P You can end up with a door stop if you don't know what you are doing! I've had a good experience so far and would recommend... I think most folks buying these boats are newbs or don't have the skill sets for building.. or maybe don't have the time to invest in custom builds. I've been in racing for a long time but 1/8 buggy/truggy and pro4 are my main area of expertice,, so this is a great step into this side of the hobby Not to mention we will be running this boat in a local class in the near future.

[wavekatcher]

align1.jpgMy Revolt came with a seriously misaligned motor to stuffing tube issue. It took a lot of motor mount and tube tweaking to get the alignment even close. It's still off quite a bit but much better than the factory crap. I tossed the factory cable (unusable due to a kink where it was forced into the misaligned motor connector) and the out of round flex adapter, replacing them with Steve's cable and an Octura flex hex. Attached is a pic showing the severity of the misalignment.

I just unboxed my new Revolt 30 and it unfortunately looks like it has the exact same issue as your boat Patrick. Its fine if I look at it with my eyes crossed

[ron1950]

[PatrickM]

I just unboxed my new Revolt 30 and it unfortunately looks like it has the exact same issue as your boat Patrick. Its fine if I look at it with my eyes crossed

At this point , my advice would be to return the boat before putting any time or effort into it, and hope that the replacement is correct, or at least less misaligned. Grim is the best one to consult on this option.

[wavekatcher]

At this point , my advice would be to return the boat before putting any time or effort into it, and hope that the replacement is correct, or at least less misaligned. Grim is the best one to consult on this option.

Thanks for the reply. I had a look at the picture of the alignment of the flex and motor on the website for Aquacraft and mine is nowhere near where it should be. Terrible QC. I think I will heed your advice and just box it back up and hopefully the replacement boat will not be as bad. I will not be happy if I have to pay to ship it back tho.

[PatrickM]

If Mike Z. doesn't respond with another option, you'll have to deal with Tower customer service. IMO, you shouldn't have to pay for return shipping on a defective item... but then who in hell do I think I am.... LOL!

[arp1500]

when i had a aquacrap and the first run with in 5 mins it barrel rolled and split the hull i had to pay to ship it back to tower even thou it was a defect i said i dont want this piece of junk they said either call aquacrap and have them replace the hull or ship it back as a return

so i had to pay shipping

that is the whole reason why i have a bad taste in my mouth about aquacrap

[ray schrauwen]

Here is an update. NOT HAPPY

I still have not had a chance to run the Revolt more than 20 feet.

I waited a week and a half to receive parts from aquacraft but they didn't send me all the parts needed even thought I was very thorough in my email regarding what parts were needed.

After I brought this to their attention they said the additional parts would go out "this week".

Sucks for me. It's been three weeks and I still haven not had a chance to run this thing. Now I have to possibly wait another two weeks before I can.

At the end of the summer I am selling it and going to move on the another manufacturer. I'm done with Aquacraft.

Let me know, I might be interested.

[kobiwan73]

I just ordered one of these, should be here the 25th. But after reading this thread I tried to cancel the order before it shipped. This will/would have been my first boat. I quit racing touring car and wanted something that I could just buy throw in the water and have some fun with. But this thread has put a bad taste in my mouth. I know nothing about boats and don't need the hassle of getting a brand new one and have it not be built right from the factory and to replace stuff or have to go through it glueing stuff and what not. Kind of dissapointed really.

[longballlumber]

I just ordered one of these, should be here the 25th. But after reading this thread I tried to cancel the order before it shipped. This will/would have been my first boat. I quit racing touring car and wanted something that I could just buy throw in the water and have some fun with. But this thread has put a bad taste in my mouth. I know nothing about boats and don't need the hassle of getting a brand new one and have it not be built right from the factory and to replace stuff or have to go through it glueing stuff and what not. Kind of dissapointed really.

I am just curious... How many "pre-built" touring cars would you take out of the box and go race with out tearing it completely down to make sure you would be getting top perfomance out of the chassis...

In my eyes RTR boats fall under the same catagory. You need to go thru everthing to make sure it's right before throwing it on "the track".

Just my $.02

later,
Mike