Stargazer w/ Zbox.. not engaging

[usaski1]

So Z-box is great, and the times are awesome, but I noticed an issue last night, that was pretty upsetting... at least at 34.2 mph, and once or twice at 24.9 mph, it would not engage. I was doing 36 down the course. It did engage about 2 out of 5 times last night at 34.2. Is this a function of the CR/CS value? I did play with that a bit. But I think its set at the auto setting right now of like 1910 on my boat. Really frustrating. It may have a tougher time at higher speeds, as only one or twice I noticed it at the slower speeds. I know if you pull back on the throttle it will disengage, and so I've had to be careful on that.

[lff]

I have not seen that on mine but I have mechanical linkage. Used it 50-60+ passes and it locks in perfect every time. Talked to PP about it ?

[markchilcutt]

No problems on my 06 LXI DBW. But i have only skied it on day prolly about 20 passes. I would contact PP!

[colo_skier]

My guess would be it somehow lost the RPM signal. I'm not sure but can you see what it reads in the rpm portion of the screen when it doesn't engage? We had a boat that had this issue and it was the ground and power sides giving us issues, nothing to do with the settings.

[501Brandon]

I have had a similar issue but only coming out of turns... We had the same issue ervery now and then with SG. We simulate a turn island start sometimes and it seems as if you run the throttle up to hard while in the turn it will not engage once you line up. What I did recently that seemed to work is keep the power down while in the deep part of the turn and advance once we line up and head into the course. I cant make it do it enough to gather enough data to be conclusive...

[usaski1]

Yeah, I am suspecting needing to run a dedicated ground and power from the battery. A little worried about how to do that.. How do you isolate the power so its dead when the key turns off? how do I make sure its protected for a fuse, and that I'm using the right wires?

[colo_skier]

For the issue we had it was the dedicated ground wire that was the fix. We still pulled the power from a keyed source. I think the rpm signal is using ground as the reference point against what it sees as an edge for the pulse from the engine. If it was me I would make sure the ground is really good first.

[Deanoski]

TW had a great diagram of how to power pp sg direct with a napa relay part. hes banned from this site but he might find him on water ski forum.

 

I can not find the diagram in my computer. someone else here may have it.

 

best of luck

Deano

[flat]

My Z-Box was not engaging as well. The Auto CR/CS function was setting the parameter at 1900. I played around with it and I lowered this value to around 1500 and it works great since.

 

[Razorskier1]

The ground matters. When I had some problems with mine locking in late and hot PP told me to take the ground wire and ground it to the block. It worked.

[usaski1]

good to know... any idea which wire out of PP is the ground? I guess I could look a the pin outs on the website! Im going to try cs/cr 1500 tonight.

 

I've also got a problem with in wakeboard mode, it overshoots to like 24mph, and then drops back down. Annoying on a private lake.

[flat]

Let me know how it goes.

[usaski1]

CR/CS 1500 seemed to help a lot tonight. Didn't have any non-engages at any speed. (well, I did have one, but I think it was driver error) Next thing is that before the gates, its still coming in hot, and then setting down. Times are all on. Its almost like PP needs a 55 bouy gps marker so it nows not to over shoot. I mean, Im not positive, but if your running a 34.2, that speed should never go over 34.2 really, right?

[flat]

The speed before the gates on all speed controls is programmed to be 0.2 to 0.6MPH higher than the set speed. The speed inside the slalom course is also moving up and down on a pre-programmed pattern (depending the letter chosen). All the above are agreed by the skiers, the international federation and the speed control engineers together.

[usaski1]

naw, Im comming in like 2mph hotter, and then when it hits the gates it slows down and by 1 ball im dead on. Thats wrong I think.