Perfect Pass Contents Products Design Competitors Options Sources External links Navigation menu"2007Tournament Water Ski RulesA producer of perfect pass equipment
Water sports equipmentTowed water sportsSporting goods brands
water skiwakeboardSki Boat IndustryCruise control3-event water skiingwakeboardingrpmZero OffGPS
Perfect Pass is a digital precision speed controls system used to control boat speed, used on high performance water ski and wakeboard boats. It has been the leader in the speed control market for competitive water sports since its conception in 1995. The widespread use of Perfect Pass in the Ski Boat Industry, has resulted in colloquial usage Perfect Pass in reference to similar speed controls products[citation needed]. It is commonly compared to Cruise control systems in cars.
Perfect Pass
A Perfect Pass system has been used in breaking and setting every water ski World Record.[1]
Contents
1 Products
2 Design
3 Competitors
4 Options
5 Sources
6 External links
Products
Perfect Pass supplies three speed control systems. The Wakeboard Pro model is designed to maintain speed for wakeboarding and is their top selling model. The Digital Pro is designed as a speed control for 3-event water skiing and wakeboarding. The Perfect Pass Cruise model is for recreational use. Both the Digital Pro and Wakeboard Pro model have been superseded by the Star Gazer GPS speed control unit.
Design
Perfect Pass is a closed loop speed control system that maintains speed by using input settings to control many external variables such as crew and rider weight, wind adjustment, and rpm. The output of which controls a servo motor which takes over control of the throttle when engaged.
Competitors
Perfect Pass had few competitors in the high performance speed control market from 1995 to 2007, Accu-Ski provided a competitive product but did not successfully gain any significant market share and through the late 90's and early 2000's Perfect Pass became a manufacturer OEM option on tow boats from Malibu, Mastercraft, Correct Craft, and many of the wakeboard boat brands. However in the mid 2000's a competitor arrived in the form of Zero Off which introduced aGPS satellite technology to control speed and boat path information and communicating directly with the engine management computer. Zero Off was designed along with Engine Management company E-Controls Technology which had recently begun providing ECU's tuned for Tow Boat engine management. Perfect Pass also released a drive-by-wire variant of its new Star Gazer GPS cruise control system which could communicate directly with the ECU.
Zero Off and Perfect Pass each controlled patents on the technology utilized in their products which resulted in an agreement in May 2008 in which Perfect Pass agreed to not provide units for drive-by-wire boats newer than 2008 model year and that Zero Off in turn would not provide speed control units for boats with mechanically operated throttle units. The effect of this agreement is Perfect Pass lost its ability to be provided as an OEM option which is now controlled by Zero Off.
Another brand Ride Steady by Hydrophase has also entered into the market.
Options
Due to the design as a speed control for Competitive Watersports Perfect Pass has introduced options to make its Star Gazer product more competitive with Zero Off for owners of older Mechanically Throttled boats, these include the Z-Box which has accelerometers and helps the Star Gazer to emulate the pull of the Zero Off Product as well as GPS upgrades for older units which lacked GPS input.
Perfect pass continues to provide customer service and update the Star Gazer product as well as provide options for owners of boats with out E-Controls Engine Management systems.
Sources
^ "2007Tournament Water Ski Rules, Edited by: Robert K. Corson, Chairman of the IWSF Tournament Council, Retrieved on: November 28, 2006, Version 1.0
External links
- A producer of perfect pass equipment
Sporting goods brands, Towed water sports, Water sports equipmentUncategorized
