Our Picks

After much thought and research we went with GSA and not Infinity Wave.  I liked the longer one piece hinge on GSA and the option to control the wave via an Apple Watch (which we have) and the push button control verses a generic Tab Switch.

The biggest task I have to say was running the wires.  I am a retired Aircraft Mechanic so I'm sure it's all my fault, but nobody wants a wire broken or worn thru over time.  Drilling the holes, while seemingly being the biggest worry was actually not that bad. Run your tape, check your hole placement twice and REVERSE drill the holes first as per the instructions!!!

Customer support was awesome, I called them twice just to make sure I was doing it right.  My boat had a little bit of a curve so the hinge didn't sit flush.  They advised me that up to 1/4 of an Inch was acceptable and that was what I had.

I had to cut off about 3" of the bunks on my trailer.  Also to note, they say to mount the Tabs 4" in from the side, in doing this the Tab stuck out a little from underneath the swim platform. My concern was someone my hit it while jumping of the platform, never happened thankfully.

A coworker of mine made an aluminum plate for the control that I wanted to put on the dash, where the heater vent would have been, instead of by the throttle.  We both liked the ease of operating the system with it in view of the dash.

For it's performance, as everybody has stated about "Tab" style surf systems, you have to add more weight.  Thank you 500 lbs of steel shot bags from WakeLife!!  Without the extra weight the wave wasn't any better than with the NautiCurl that we have been using for years.  Once we added that extra 500 lbs it was awesome.

Ballast set up - Full internal tanks, 850 Bow arrow bag (little over half full), 2 - 750 Rear PnP bags (full), 500 steel bags under seats and wedge down. Speed 10.8.

We love the feature that you can dial in a Surf or Skim wave.  We are diffidently happy with our purchase and I wish we would have done it sooner.  An automated Surf system is so much more convenient that having to stop and move the suck gate.

Sweet mod. What boat model year were you starting from?

Since this is no longer a finished project and abck to being a work in progress I figured i'd post it here so there there would be more input. (The finished projects don't show up in the "unread content" search. 

So since Jon Thompson dropped off the face of the earth I have been working on this arduino surfgate project trying to get it ready for install by spring time. 


I've never programmed anything before so it's been quite a learning curve but after many many hours of trial and error I've got something that I think is closing in on a finished product. 
From my testing everything works as it should. 

Rundown:
Starting with the existing code for the surf gates I went back through it (with help from JTryon) and adapted it for the DFRobot Romeo BLE Board which greatly simplifies the wiring and component list. 
Since this board supports Bluetooth I did away with the rotary encoder and wrote a Bluetooth App to control the settings of the arduino. (android only at the moment) (I also have the same code but for the rotary if you still want to use that)

From the app you can control how much to retract or deploy each tab, you can save that setting as default, reboot the arduino, and use Launch mode. 

Launch mode is specific to those using surf tabs rather than gates, it deploys both tabs at the same time until you reach a certain speed (user settable) and then retracts. This helps with getting on plane. 

Wiring diagram below. I went ahead and showed all the wiring for the relays as well because they can be confusing. 
 

Parts needed: 

Romeo BLE (arduino board) https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1176.html
GPS Module: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MRNN3YZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Relays: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074FSZWVT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Jumpers if you don't have them already: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EV70C78/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Additionally you'll need a 3 way switch, and appropriate fuses. And actuators obviously. 

Obviously these are simulated images...  hacked in photoshop, you'll have to use a little imagination. 

VOTE FOR THE LOGO POSITION AND DESIGN.    All 3 hats (richardson and flexfit) will be offered.

 

 

 

What type of carpet did you buy and where did you purchase it?