Anyone use Nautic Laugic Products? GPS Paddlewheel Feed?
 

I was looking at the Perfect Pass thread. I have a 2006 SAN 210 with Wakeboard Pro. I was thinking about upgrading with the Stargazer Upgrade from Perfect Pass, but found this product from Nautic Laugic. I just uses a GPS receiver to replicate the paddle wheel feed.

Has anyone used or tried one of these out?

I am probably going to buy one and use it this year but would be interested to hear experiences that people have had so far as well.

I have the NL4PP and it's worth every penny!! My PP works perfectly now, with 100% precision and accuracy. The difference is unbelievable. I just set my speed and it's rock solid no matter what. Before the PP would surge and hunt and was never quite right and I was constantly playing with it. Now I can just adjust my speed directly on the PP dash unit and it responds so quickly and accuately. It feels more accurate than the cruise control on my car. It is a great product and made my boat so much better!

Interesting! I was considering upgrading my Wakeboard Pro (vers 6 I believe) to the StarGazer. One thing holding me back was having to buy the new multiline display.

Colin, will the NL4-PP work with the older 2-line display (Centurion)?

Was it plug and play?

This is the guage that I currently have (I think) and was told that I wouldn't need a new guage.

http://www.perfectpass.com/images/20...autique300.jpg

This looks very interesting. Anyone else having a problem figuring out cost though their site?

Yes, their site is very confusing. I'm not even sure it will work with my Perfect Pass system, let alone which model I need. Based on their website I can keep my paddle wheel and just plug their system inline between my paddle wheel and the Master Module. If I keep my paddle wheel I can keep the water temp sensor too.

I've never seen this before. Need to check this out.

I emailed nautic Laugic this morning and just received a reply from

Cary Joiner
nautic Laugic
360 901-4030

I think I like this company and am going to try it out. I will be buying a unit sometime in the next month! I will report back. I love competition in the free market!

Not that it's a big deal but I would assume that the time from the satellite would not be displayed on the perfect pass display since as far as the perfect pass module is concerned there is no GPS receiver, only a paddle wheel.

I think the time is only displayed on the Speedo guages and not the Pefect Pass guage, at least that is how it works on my guage.

Yeah I have an older Wakeboard Pro with the single line display and it works fine.

I have the same display as you Sam so I'd be good. Whats the number thay quoted you?

For the NL4-PP + Swift 10 Hz - $245.00 which has the faster GPS receiver. If you want the Garmin unit over the Swift unit you can get the NL4-PP + Garmin 18X-5HZ for $295, but the Garmin unit doesn't update as fast. The Stargazer Upgrade looks like it uses the Garmin unit to me with their logo instead of Garmin's.

I have to verify the connector though and my boat is still getting detailed so I will have to hold off until it is finished.

Thats a great deal. Whats PP's $395?

My boat has the PP servo motor on it to control the throttle. I've burned through three of them surfing the last few years and at $180 shipped they aint cheap! I'm looking to see if Bosch or someone else makes that unit. I know they must, so if anyone else knows please fill me in.

Remember that the nautic Laugic NL4-PP and GPS receiver only replaces the Airmar ST300 paddle-wheel and nothing else. The Stargazer Upgrade cost $499 and from what I can tell does the same thing. I think the nautic Laugic unit will only allow me to run GPS in wakeboard mode and not slalom or RPM mode, but who cares, I don't use those anyhow.

I have the StarGazer wake edition. The display does show the GPS time on it. Also, my GPS receiver has a Garmin logo on it not the PP logo as shown in the marketing materials on their site. So, the receiver is definitely a Garmin.

I have the Garmin reciever and I can say it gets a signal really fast compared to the portable GPS nav unit I have on my windshield sometimes. The Swift option was not available when I purchased my NL4PP but I probably would have opted for that one since it was $50 cheaper. I remember Casey not recommending the BR-355 for the NL4PP.

RPM mode comes from the engine and should still work fine. You don't need a paddlewheel or a gps module to run in RPM mode.

So if this unit just replaces the paddle wheel you will still have to calibrate the speedo right?

I think so, but I don't think I have ever even looked at the speedo on my boat. I just use the digital read out on the perfect pass.

if your speedo gets its reading from the paddle wheel in the first place you shouldnt have to because the gps will now be sending it the signal.

I hear the Paddle wheel is a must for river riders/delta because of the current. I have a few buddies with the wakeboard pro. It seems to be dead on accurate. Gps is land based right? So if there is a 5mph currant wouldn't it all be off? I've never used the stargazer so i cant compare.

That's correct. StarGazer cannot account for a current so you'd have to adjust your speed based on if you're going up or downstream. There is a custom hybrid system out there from Perfect Pass that I've heard about that uses both a paddle wheel and a GPS receiver for the best of both worlds. It has some algorithm to determine the speed based on data from both sensors.

Has anyone else bought one of these?

I have, but haven't hooked it up yet. Looking like a project for me in about 2-3 weeks.

Ive been looking around at these for a few months. I havent pulled the trigger because it only has a 90 day warranty, and my boat isnt in the water yet. Gonna wait till the water temp comes up a little then pick one up.

I hope to test it this Sunday. Although I don't have PP installed yet. I am replacing my speedo (and tach) and the new speedo uses the same paddlewheel. In theory, this should work, although when I tried it briefly last weekend, it did not... but neither did my newly installed tach. I think I may have had something hooked up wrong and/or the Tach had a bad internal ground that was causing a bunch of problems.. I will hopefully know more after this weekend.

Bump. Anyone else with any new input on Nautic Laugic? My paddlewheel (I think) is acting up and it would cost me $130 for a new paddlewheel plus drilling a larger hole in my boat (2002 SAN)...thinking of just paying double for GPS and not having to rely on paddlewheel anymore. Through Perfect Pass it would be like $600-$700 because I'd also have to get a new display.

Finally got everything hooked up today on my 2000 SAN and tested her out. I was not able to pull anyone today for various reasons. However, with just the boat running in a lot of chop, I have to say that I was impressed with the nauticlaugic system. It held speed to within 0.3 mph through the chop. It held great at wakeboarding speeds as well as surfing speeds. I felt no surging during my 2 hour test run. Very smooth for a MPH run. Not quite as smooth as RPM, but better in the turns. Note, I was not running with ballast today.

Sky was clear, so I have no test runs during heavy clouds.

Weekend of 15th-16th-17th of July I will be able to put it through more rigorous testing with real wakeboard and wakesure runs. Probably won't get out again before then.

Note, I am running on a single-line display 6.0 software PP Digital Pro (in Wakeboard mode).

I am def more eager to see how it behaves with ballast and rider pulling on your boat. thanks for this update!

I just ordered the NL4-PP so we'll see how she works...Cary was great in walking me through the product. Fingers crossed that it solves my problem.

If/when you hook it up, if it starts cylcling through speeds instead of reading real speeds, then you have the test jumper in. Just open up the unit and pull out the longer tabbed yellow jumper. If it does not do this, then it shipped without the jumper and you are golden.

How does the GPS perform in turns? not considering one since the river I ride is tidal and has strong currents, but my paddlewheel is not consistant in turns. I mounted 11" farther back than the PP instructions said but wish I would have put it way back by the transmission near the raw water pickup. I have mine about 6" (I think) to port of my drain plug in front of the engine and 11" back, but on right turns it wants to take off. It'll go as much throttle as you give it and keep asking for more, whipping your rider if you let it. Left turns are much smoother. So I think the paddlewheel comes out of the water a bit on tight right turns, and tight turns are necessary where I ride. Wider turns it stays smooth both ways. Not really worried about it, but curious how the GPS does in turns, if it wants to take off fast or holds a more steady speed.

Used it again on Saturday, but for surfing only. I had my SAN weighted down with a 750 on the surf-side rear compartment, a 400 in the bow toward the surf side, 3 people in the boat and a loaded cooler. Held a very smooth speed with negligible variation. We didn't really get any good turns in, as I was mostly trying to teach newbies how to surf, and I rode only a very little bit. I think I only did one full 180 turn, but I did not notice speed variation during the turn. It seemed very smooth. Also, the system synced quickly with the satellite as well (I never noticed a sync time problem). Note, I have the faster non-Garmin receiver.

So far, I would have no problem recommending this product, but I still have not wakeboarded behind it. By the time the water was smooth enough on Saturday to wakeboard, my boat was acting up (intermittent stalling problem I'm still trying to chase down) and I had to get it trailered before everyone and their cousin decided to come in from the air show and fireworks.

Hooked the NLP4-PP up (super easy to install) and it solved my perfect pass problems, which means my paddlewheel must've gone bad. Ran my SAN fully loaded and the speed held no problem. It was very foggy and it still synched up. Turns for double ups were good (it seemed to hold a more consistent speed than the paddlewheel in turns...not sure how that would affect tighter turnarounds). All in all, I didn't notice anything negative and it might even hold a better speed. We had my buddy's GPS too to calibrate and it turns out that we're running 25.3 to 25.6 on his GPS...where my old speed was calibrated at 24.7...that was interesting.

I purchased one and it works WAY WAY better than the paddle wheel ever did or will in my 2004 Malibu Wakesetter LSV. The LSV has a very bad paddle pickup. I tried two different paddle wheels and I even put the brass pickup that extends down further in the water to have a supposedly better pickup.

The Natic Laugic is simple to install (just plug in the connectors literally and screw it to the boat) and works great. I thought I would have to keep it primed with a separate switch but it syncs so fast I never even notice the syncing after the first sync.

If you paddle wheel doesn't work well and you were like me and didn't want to spend 600 bucks on stargazer this is for you.

I have used it with 15 people in the boat and full ballast and with no ballast at slalom speeds. It works like the PP is supposed to. Stays within .4 MPH and I haven't adjusted the PP settings yet to try and improve that.

I highly recommend if your paddle isn't doing what you need it to.

I agree. I like mine. I just used industrial velcro and velcro'd it to the gelcoat under my dash pod. Did the same with my PP module. No screws needed.

when you guys added this to pp, did you have to recalibrate or did a reset of the system make it just rely on the new gps system's data

They say you have to calibrate, and I played around with mine a little, but it was pretty darned close right out of the box..these thing is almost completely plug-and-play