RCU Forums - New to RC Boats, thinking of getting a Shockwave 26

Welcome to RC boats. The shockwave does/did have a history of props breaking which was fixed with the replacment metal prop. More importantly the shockwave uses the same motor/esc which the proboat widowmaker uses and is known to fry esc very very quickly. Their was a issue with the esc's lipo/nimh switch which caused the esc's to fry. The shockwave is also very limited on what you can do with do to hull speed limitations and the brittle abs plastic hull itself. It also has PB's nightmare steerable outdrive which completly sucks. The advantage of the shockwave is it only requires 1 battery to operate, also what you see is what you get. The only thing you can really do is get a better esc for it and drive it as is. If fast electric boats is something you want to get into then you will out grow the shockwave very VERY quickly. If you just want a boat to plug in drive as is for fun and be done then it may work out for you. If you think you want to really get into FE boat I would say a Proboat Miss Geico would be a nice start. Beautiful made boat well constructed and a pleasure to drive. Also will teach you about props and tuning boats, Since you mentioned running on a beach a mono maybe a better fit for you to handle the waves in which case maybe a Traxxas Spartan maybe more up your ally or a better yet a DF33 copy like the Pursuit mono. As far as your battery question. Unlike NIMH/NICAD batteries which can be drained fully and then fully charged lipos can not be fully discharged AT ALL. Doing so will destroy the battery, the LVC is the low-voltage-cutoff. When the esc senes the batteries have reached a certain value the esc shut off power to the boat or makes the stutter telling you it is time to bring the boat to shore. The lvc is a battery protection function of the esc's. With the shockwave all the lipo/nimh switch does is turns on the LVC. When running nimh thelvc needs to be off because the voltage drop durnign heavy amp loads (starting from a stop/ getting the boat on plane) will hit the lvc on the boat. For boat retrevial after a flip or electric issue I converted 2 old boats I wasn't using anymore to rescue boats. Here's my thread on the rescue boats: http://forums.offshoreelectrics.com/...ad.php?t=16705

After running in salt water, wipe the hull and hardware down and rinse throughly with fresh water also force fresh water throughly the cooling lines getting ALLtraces of salt water off the boat. Failing to do so will result in possible damage to the drive hardware. The shockwaves u-joint on the drive WILL rust in salt water if not rinsed and lubed after each run.

Here are some of my vids:
The first is a RIO EP rescue boat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcU5gscReK0
Second is a Apache 24 resuce boat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pe_zJxAjbw
Here is a Miss Geico, not be the best choice for big waves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsZmdN6FsIs