Set of Taps 3 plates for sale

[Germaine Marine]

ID, so i'll dive a tad deeper so you can clarify what Lenco told me over the course of the last few days as I am breaking down a project I am working on. Bear with me on terminology.

Lenco explained to me that while low batteries etc can affect the tabs speed, in the case of Taps 3, the system has an auto shutoff if the correct voltage is not available. The system wont operate at a reduced speed etc, it actually wont function at all, period. I have had this happen once. With that said, lenco repeated over and over to me during the course of the conversation that with power being constant, the tabs operation would not be slowed in the extreme duty series based on load or speed because the motor was rated far beyond the enviroment used in this situation. Would you agree with that? Im trying to get my head around how inconsistent if at all this will get when I start down the rabbit hole. More plate, shorter plate etc could in theory affect how the system gets to Tiges presets, However, if that were the case I would have thought I had seen those inconsistencies as currently constructed. To date speed and weight have had no negative affect on plate deployment in the taps 3 system.

Thanks for reading and responding, I appreciate the knowledge.

[Germaine Marine]

PS, TABS are sold-

[UNSTUCK]

I wonder what the operating voltage is on the Taps 3 system then? I would think that Lenco would have to use motors that run on say 11.2 volts to achieve the rated load. Then they would need to reduce the voltage going into the system so they don't burn up. Then I would guess that once the system detects, say 11.1 volts it shuts it down. But that can't be right because I can buy the exact same part number actuator (and have) and run it at 14.5 volts with no issues. My point from the beginning was that I don't think it's worth the money to buy Lencos switch with the LED's. As said above, get a normal switch and listen for the actuator to free wheel when all the way up and all the way down.

Jason, I wonder if you have had no negative effects because I think you said you run the tabs all the way down (maybe that was just in your old Z3?) all the time? If that was the case then I could easily see Lenco adding a second of extra time for the "all the way down" position, just like they did for the "all the way up" position when I would turn my boat off. That would ensure you do get all the way down every time. Do you feel like you get the same position every time if you were to run 3/4 of the way down?

I doubt any of this matters. If the wave is great, who cares how it got that way.

[IDBoating]

lenco repeated over and over to me during the course of the conversation that with power being constant, the tabs operation would not be slowed in the extreme duty series based on load or speed because the motor was rated far beyond the enviroment used in this situation.

All that means is the equation has become so lopsided that it "doesn't matter". Think of turning a screw into wood. Done by hand, it takes what you'd describe as a reasonable amount of effort. But if you turned that screw with the propshaft of your boat, you wouldn't even notice... there's so much torque compared to the load. Strictly speaking, the engine DOES "feel" the difference but it's so small as to be immeasurable. In that case you could argue that the engine's speed is a "constant" - but only if the load is a really small fraction of available power.

This analogy isn't perfect since in a combustion engine the ECU can maintain idle by increasing fuel flow. You can't play the same trick with an electric actuator since the available voltage doesn't change. If you were really serious you could duplicate the ECU behavior by going to a pulse width modulated (PWM) driving circuit ahead of the actuator, but that would have to be a closed loop system which implies some sort of position feedback and if you have that you don't need PWM in the first place!

These actuators are pretty small. To have such an overwhelming amount of excess power that the speed appears to be constant means the load would have to be really small. Put another way, here on the actuator test fixture you can noticeably slow an actuator with just hand pressure. It keeps moving for sure (they are pretty powerful) but you can hear and measure the change just from the load of a human arm. The load imposed by a normal sized trim/TAPS/SurfGate plate against water moving even at a slow speed is significantly more powerful than your arm, so the effect on the actuator will be greater too. Unless they are gearing those actuators WAY, WAY down (trading torque for speed) it's hard to imagine a normal sized actuator that isn't affected by normal plate forces.

[IDBoating]

Then I would guess that once the system detects, say 11.1 volts it shuts it down. But that can't be right because I can buy the exact same part number actuator (and have) and run it at 14.5 volts with no issues.

The actuators themselves are "dumb" devices, e.g. they don't contain electronics that senses voltage and chooses to operate, or not, based on that voltage. Electrically they are nothing but a brushed electric motor. If there's some voltage sensing going on, it's happening in the electronics that is controlling power TO the actuator(s).

It's certainly possible to decide that you'll only operate an actuator within some voltage range, but that only (and partially) "solves" the varying voltage part of the problem. You still have the varying LOAD part, too. When the hull is motionless, your hand could reposition a trim plate easily. When the hull is moving at 10 MPH (surfing) or 20+ MPH (boarding) you'd find it **exceptionally difficult** (and I'm being generous) to force a panel farther into the water with only your hand. Our text fixture can dial up the force against an actuator to over 700 pounds and the actuator keeps moving (although MUCH more slowly than when they are unloaded). I don't know about you, but my arm cannot move 700 pounds like that. {grin}

Since you don't know the varying load on the actuator, any time-based approach to "control" is little more than a guess. Now, compound that with multiple adjustments: First we deploy to (say) 70% with unknown load; maybe we're off by 0%, or maybe 10%. Later we retract to 30% (a change of 40%) but since we started anywhere from 60-80% now we're anywhere from 20-40% just counting the original error, PLUS this 40% change has an unknown error component of its own. So now we might be off 20% or more. Each adjustment might, or might not, add more error (or cancel out some part of a previous error - who knows?!?) so after a while you have no real idea where you are. This is probably why you see a lot of actuator systems drive all the way to 0%, or 100%, once in a while... it gives them a chance to recalibrate. I especially like how they've sold the concept of "automatic retraction" as a feature, when I suspect they know they NEED to recalibrate and thus they spin it as "we're auto-retracting to get on/off plane, aren't we cool?". What they're really doing is band-aiding a fundamentally broken aspect of electric actuators: They don't have any absolute positional feedback. But kudos to them for turning a liability into an asset. That's good marketing!

[Germaine Marine]

I wonder what the operating voltage is on the Taps 3 system then? I would think that Lenco would have to use motors that run on say 11.2 volts to achieve the rated load. Then they would need to reduce the voltage going into the system so they don't burn up. Then I would guess that once the system detects, say 11.1 volts it shuts it down. But that can't be right because I can buy the exact same part number actuator (and have) and run it at 14.5 volts with no issues. My point from the beginning was that I don't think it's worth the money to buy Lencos switch with the LED's. As said above, get a normal switch and listen for the actuator to free wheel when all the way up and all the way down.

Jason, I wonder if you have had no negative effects because I think you said you run the tabs all the way down (maybe that was just in your old Z3?) all the time? If that was the case then I could easily see Lenco adding a second of extra time for the "all the way down" position, just like they did for the "all the way up" position when I would turn my boat off. That would ensure you do get all the way down every time. Do you feel like you get the same position every time if you were to run 3/4 of the way down?

I doubt any of this matters. If the wave is great, who cares how it got that way.

I actually ran my plate anywhere from 1-4...
All the way down doesent ever bottom the actuator out. I cycled the system yesterday without tabs, with tabs and then with me putting pressure against them. My gut is telling me that the standards can show inconsistencies etc... I really think the short throw extreme duty series has a much smaller amount of inconsistent movement.

I have taped the actuator movements from top to bottom in single movement increments. They are perfect every time, regardless of pressure, motor off or on etc.

I know taps 3 as ID pointed out has some features built in to try and keep the system consistent, im just trying to get to the bottom of the variance possible from cycle to cycle.

[Germaine Marine]

The actuators themselves are "dumb" devices, e.g. they don't contain electronics that senses voltage and chooses to operate, or not, based on that voltage. Electrically they are nothing but a brushed electric motor. If there's some voltage sensing going on, it's happening in the electronics that is controlling power TO the actuator(s).

It's certainly possible to decide that you'll only operate an actuator within some voltage range, but that only (and partially) "solves" the varying voltage part of the problem. You still have the varying LOAD part, too. When the hull is motionless, your hand could reposition a trim plate easily. When the hull is moving at 10 MPH (surfing) or 20+ MPH (boarding) you'd find it **exceptionally difficult** (and I'm being generous) to force a panel farther into the water with only your hand. Our text fixture can dial up the force against an actuator to over 700 pounds and the actuator keeps moving (although MUCH more slowly than when they are unloaded). I don't know about you, but my arm cannot move 700 pounds like that. {grin}

Since you don't know the varying load on the actuator, any time-based approach to "control" is little more than a guess. Now, compound that with multiple adjustments: First we deploy to (say) 70% with unknown load; maybe we're off by 0%, or maybe 10%. Later we retract to 30% (a change of 40%) but since we started anywhere from 60-80% now we're anywhere from 20-40% just counting the original error, PLUS this 40% change has an unknown error component of its own. So now we might be off 20% or more. Each adjustment might, or might not, add more error (or cancel out some part of a previous error - who knows?!?) so after a while you have no real idea where you are. This is probably why you see a lot of actuator systems drive all the way to 0%, or 100%, once in a while... it gives them a chance to recalibrate. I especially like how they've sold the concept of "automatic retraction" as a feature, when I suspect they know they NEED to recalibrate and thus they spin it as "we're auto-retracting to get on/off plane, aren't we cool?". What they're really doing is band-aiding a fundamentally broken aspect of electric actuators: They don't have any absolute positional feedback. But kudos to them for turning a liability into an asset. That's good marketing!

What actuator in the test fixture are you guys using ID? Im wonderign if the 101 standard vs the 101/102 Xtreme duties are used to negate the load issue...... Its what I have thought this whole time but I have no idea.

I know for a fact the murphy system is regulating exact power to the tabs, that I confirmed with Murphy and Lenco.....

[Germaine Marine]

ID, In theory, if the extreme duty motors are geared low in-order to sustain constant operation at or below a certain load rating... and the power is regulated to the T at the controller would it be safe to assume that the operation of the actuator would be fairly consistent?

[bsreid]

Little off topic but the 2018 actuators have a totally different mounting position, no longer on the platform. They’re mounted sideways onto the transom

[Germaine Marine]

Little off topic but the 2018 actuators have a totally different mounting position, no longer on the platform. They’re mounted sideways onto the transom

They just did that to ease the pressure of the actuators, the swim step mounting point was putting some into a bind.

[IDBoating]

What actuator in the test fixture are you guys using ID? Im wonderign if the 101 standard vs the 101/102 Xtreme duties are used to negate the load issue.

Right now we have Lenco P/N 15054-001 (101 2.25 stroke) and Bennett BEA2000 in house for analysis and abuse {grin}. As I said, if they really geared this down it should be possible to make the load variation so small that it "doesn't matter" but then I'd expect the speed to be glacial, unacceptable to most people.

I know for a fact the murphy system is regulating exact power to the tabs, that I confirmed with Murphy and Lenco.

Murphy's PDM does have configurable PWM outputs so in theory they could pick a target effective voltage and modulate the PWM based on incoming voltage. I have not heard they are doing that but it's definitely possible; however, I HAVE heard pretty recently that Murphy-driven plates are known to be wildly different than their on-dash digital percentages so I'm not sure how to resolve your data with what the boat manufacturers are saying privately. I don't have any insight on Medallion-driven plates but the fact that Malibu is spending mucho dollars for electro-hydraulic actuators with an integrated position sensor kinda answers that question for us, eh?

[IDBoating]

ID, In theory, if the extreme duty motors are geared low in-order to sustain constant operation at or below a certain load rating... and the power is regulated to the T at the controller would it be safe to assume that the operation of the actuator would be fairly consistent?

Yes, in theory that would make a big difference. But as I said, you can only take that so far with the existing actuator (motor) diameters before slow extension/retraction would become extremely annoying. Beyond a certain point, to have both reasonable speed and enough torque to render loads unimportant, you'd have to increase the motor size - which would require a larger housing (either longer or larger diameter).

The correct answer continues to be actual physical position measurement. Then you don't care about varying loads, you just accommodate them. You also don't need complex drivers, you just power the actuator and measure where it *really* is. But for some reason, nobody in the actuator business seems to want to do that.

[Germaine Marine]

Right now we have Lenco P/N 15054-001 (101 2.25 stroke) and Bennett BEA2000 in house for analysis and abuse {grin}. As I said, if they really geared this down it should be possible to make the load variation so small that it "doesn't matter" but then I'd expect the speed to be glacial, unacceptable to most people.


Murphy's PDM does have configurable PWM outputs so in theory they could pick a target effective voltage and modulate the PWM based on incoming voltage. I have not heard they are doing that but it's definitely possible; however, I HAVE heard pretty recently that Murphy-driven plates are known to be wildly different than their on-dash digital percentages so I'm not sure how to resolve your data with what the boat manufacturers are saying privately. I don't have any insight on Medallion-driven plates but the fact that Malibu is spending mucho dollars for electro-hydraulic actuators with an integrated position sensor kinda answers that question for us, eh?

Well lucky for me no digital percentages. I just have 10 presets. 1-10. The system cycling from off to all the different settings has been right on the money with each movement, each time I have checked.
Maybe Tige has tried to minimize the measurable amount of variance like you discussed... maybe not lol.

As for the actuator, that is the standard actuator from lenco not the extreme duty short throw that Tige is using. I wonder what the difference truly is.......




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[Germaine Marine]

I wonder what the operating voltage is on the Taps 3 system then? I would think that Lenco would have to use motors that run on say 11.2 volts to achieve the rated load. Then they would need to reduce the voltage going into the system so they don't burn up. Then I would guess that once the system detects, say 11.1 volts it shuts it down. But that can't be right because I can buy the exact same part number actuator (and have) and run it at 14.5 volts with no issues. My point from the beginning was that I don't think it's worth the money to buy Lencos switch with the LED's. As said above, get a normal switch and listen for the actuator to free wheel when all the way up and all the way down.

Jason, I wonder if you have had no negative effects because I think you said you run the tabs all the way down (maybe that was just in your old Z3?) all the time? If that was the case then I could easily see Lenco adding a second of extra time for the "all the way down" position, just like they did for the "all the way up" position when I would turn my boat off. That would ensure you do get all the way down every time. Do you feel like you get the same position every time if you were to run 3/4 of the way down?

I doubt any of this matters. If the wave is great, who cares how it got that way.

Yep I do.... I get the same taped position if I run it from off to 5 repeatedly or off to 10. The deployment is the same each and every time to a certain number. I have checked it over and over and over. Its boggling my mind how they get it function like that, but I do know that the power out is controlled by the TT2 and clear system. Its regulated within the system.

All of this is super fascinating..... I have learned a ton looking into it all.

Hopefully it yields some good results!

[IDBoating]

Yep I do.... I get the same taped position if I run it from off to 5 repeatedly or off to 10. The deployment is the same each and every time to a certain number. I have checked it over and over and over.

Have you tried this with varying load? For example, while putting a serious amount of pressure on the plate? I'd love to know the answer.