hi,
I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the small zig zag racer. It's a small electric, self righting boat, about 11" long. I have had a go at one and am buying one for sure but does anyone else know of a website or soemthing on this boat?
Thanks
simon

I was in the local Hobby Shop today and they had 2 of them and a video. They are made by Hobby Zone. Looked pretty fast in the video for what they are, a pool or pond boat that runs on a small 600 mah 6-cell pack. Self-righting with an FM (!) 2-stick radio includes a wall caharger and 3 buoys to set up a course with. There are 6 different channels available so that you can race against others. My LHS had them for $79.99 which isn't bad compared to other boats in it's price range, especially RS and Nikko. Included is a mount that goes on the front of the boats for retrieving the buoys after you are done playing with it. Try www.hobby-warehouse.com for info.

thanks alot!!!

AWESOME !!!!

I bought two. They just arrived today. I pulled one out of the box and charged the battery with the included charger (1.5 hrs first charge). I slapped on some spare decals, popped some batteries into the radio, and made a dash straight to the apartment pool.

One correction. The boats are 15" long

Nimble is not the word.

This thing turns on a dime and accelerates like a jet. Sure, it onlu goes about 12mph, but that's plenty fast enough in a pool. It's a little too agile for more power than that. What happens when you on the power hard and turn, the boat will dive a little. Mine dove a few times, but never took on water. The steering is variable, but sensitive. It takes a little getting use to.

Speed.

Like I said. It only hits about 12mph, but has surprising acceleration. The boat only looks slow if you drive it in a straight line for too long.

The speed is totally variable which makes it perfect for water soccer or bouy racing with tight turns. If you just have to make it faster you can buy a faster motor. It's just a little 380 that can be found at any electric plane shop, like http://www.newcreations-rc.com/

But what about stopping?! It's a boat with no brakes!!! No problem. It stops pretty quickly after you get off throttle.

Battery Life

The battery comes partiallyt charged, so the first cahrge is only 1.5 hours. Future charges are 3 hrs. I ran the little boat for at least 15 minutes. The books say 10. Surprisingluy, the battery dumped almost like a matched pack.

Conclusion.

I see nothing but a future of fun coming from these things. Sure, they're toys, but sometiems, you don't feel like going to a big pond , sometimes you just want a quick thrill, they'll definately add something new to pool party. They are a blast for kids and entertaining and challenging enough for adults. Up to 6 can be driven at the same time without interference. I've yet to drive the green one, but I love them both already.

I highly recommend them. Get 2 like I did. Spen $100 each at your local hobby shop or $68 each from http://www.hobby-warehouse.com/ like I did.

Our shipment is coming i nseptember. We currently have 2 boats. We got car chargers with ours and the charge takes 15 minutes but I've made up a plug for my supernova fast charger to get peoples boats back in the water quicker. They're great fun 'eh? We are going to paint out own so they stand out in races. Can't wait till the full shipment arrives, they'll sell like hot-cakes.

They are not all made equally
I had both of them out yesterday. The yellow one didn't eve have a full charge, yet was notably faster than the green one. This was the second run for the yellow one and the first run for the green one. Maybe the motor in the green one needed a little breaking in. I doubt it.

Battery
Come to find out, the included battery is actually for the Firebird XL, thus is not sealed well enough. Water gets in and rusts the connector plates. The batteries are fairly well wrapped. I'm going to fill the ends with silicone sealant. That should do the job.

The Scoop
Each boat comes with 3 rubber balls for bouys and a light plastic scoop or cowl for manipulating the balls. Put the scoop on and leave it on. It doesn't affect the boats performance one bit, bit has many advantages. It retreives the ball (it's entended use), acts as a good bumper, and helps keep the bot from getting stuck against the side of the pool.

Water Soccer
I plan on playing this very soon. Yesterday, I just chunked all 6 the balls into the pool to see how quickly I could retreive them all. I learned a very interesting thing that will come into play when soccer is played. You can only go about 1/3 throttle with the ball. Go any faster and the ball will flip out of the cowl or the boat will ride over the ball. Either way, you'll loose the ball.

I'm not even planning on using stock batteries. Gonna make my own packs up, better cells, better sealed, more Mah's. When we were testing the prototype tipping the battery 90 degrees caused the boat to loose it's self righting capabilites. Also, we always run the boats with PVC tape around the joint of the coloured dexk to the white hull. It should be interesting to see what comes of the speed differances!

Wow gasrc, nice review!

Keep a couple of things in mind with the Zig-Zag.

There is no hop up path for these without replacing everything including the electronics. If you go with a hotter motor or more cells you will burn up the electronics as the ESC is of limited capacity. The boat is built around the electronics from the Firebird XL and you would have to replace everything when you smoke the ESC since it is a combined unit consisting of the receiver, servo and ESC all in one.

Otherwise you will have a hard time finding a better value than the ZZ for a good performing pool boat. $79 with FM radio is darn hard to beat.

Mike N
Twmaster

Exactly!

We were wanting to up the hp, but I knew the ESC would be in jeopardy. We also figured that the electronics were all-n-1. It's the hull design that makes you wanna do even more with the power. We considered going with just a slightly faster motor and A sized batteries an see if the Electronic board could take it. Another thing to consider is motor heat. A hotter motor will be a hotter motor. There is no way to dissipate the heat from the motor in a ZZ. A high performance speed 400 could burn out or possibly melt the hull where it mounts. Regardless of upgraded ESC, that is a factor that must be taken into consideration.

My plans.
I have a Zagi that I don't fly. I may strip the Jeti ESC and motor from it. Then I'll get a micro servo and Novak XXL receiver. The motor in my Zagi is just a bit hotter than the stock motor. I don't know how hot it will get. I will probably do a bench test before going through with the install.

Video!
I have it. I'll get it posted next week.

P.S. I only paid $69 +sh.

I'm planing to use stock everything, just own battery pack so it can be better sealed and I'm a bit fussy about batteries so I like to use good quality (see overkill) stuff.

I purchased a pair of zig zag racers for my sons for Christmas. We've had them out a couple times and love them. Great fun!

I was going to pick up a hobby zone quick charger but then started thinking that for another $25-35 I could pick up a more
advanced charger. Something faster that could do both nicd and nimh batteries...well my head is spinning. There are too many options. I've considered the MRC superbrain but have found many others very near that price that look as good or better.

I've got a few years of electronics back ground but have no hands on experience with these devices in this application. Does anyone have any recommendations for a quick charger in the $50-75 range?

I'm not being lazy...I did alot of surfin' for charger info...I'm just at the deer in headlights phase and could use a nudge.