New Seacraft Go! DPV

[TheScubaPanda]

I havent seen made up numbers that outrageous since the 2020 election.
The samsung 5ah 9.8a cells are $5 retail cost and under $4 when ordering 250+ at a time.

To be fair I'm not a battery expert, that's the kind of numbers I heard from friends. Even if you were to divide the price per 2 of the batteries. It still doesn't allow to produce a battery pack for super cheap. Cells only constitutes the majority of the costs in homemade products

 

[boriss]

I havent seen made up numbers that outrageous since the 2020 election.
The samsung 5ah 9.8a cells are $5 retail cost and under $4 when ordering 250+ at a time.

Even if his numbers are off, you're completely missing the point. There are costs of development, tooling, stocking, certification, price volatility, someone has to assemble these things, test them, package them up and send them to you. Someone has to be available to answer your questions when you call or email, provide warranty support and so on. There's also marketing (DEMA wasn't free), the LDS (or distributors) need their cut, etc.

I don't like the cost any more than the next person, but these costs can't be amortized over a large production run - which is the bottom line. Even the DeWalt batteries are much more expensive than the sum of their parts, despite producing I have no idea how many hundreds of thousands (or millions) of them.

 

[TheScubaPanda]

Even if his numbers are off, you're completely missing the point. There are costs of development, tooling, stocking, certification, price volatility, someone has to assemble these things, test them, package them up and send them to you. Someone has to be available to answer your questions when you call or email, provide warranty support and so on. There's also marketing (DEMA wasn't free), the LDS (or distributors) need their cut, etc.

I don't like the cost any more than the next person, but these costs can't be amortized over a large production run - which is the bottom line. Even the DeWalt batteries are much more expensive than the sum of their parts, despite producing I have no idea how many hundreds of thousands (or millions) of them.

Thank you @boriss. I thought for a sec that I totally mis-explained myself

If you think that DeWalt needs a 50% or even 60% on their battery packs to make it profitable with 10,000x if not 100,000x the scale. I let you guess how much any DPV manufacturer will need at a ridiculously smaller scale to not loose money.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to sell super cheap battery packs, but it's just not possible. Realistically it can't happen. Now, unlike the fridge example mentioned above, nothing stops you from building a custom battery pack. You're clearly voiding your warranty and better be careful, but if you know what you are doing (I wouldn't), I'm sure it's doable.
Now if you consider your hourly rate and tools, I'm not sure it will be cheaper to be honest. And obviously you loose any chance to take it in an airplane

 

[FlyingSeaMonke]

DISCLAIMER: No official number below, just somehow "educated" guess. Numbers can be argued, the point is to show that battery cells do not constitute 90% of the price of manufacturing a product like this, even 50% final customer price would be virtually impossible to sell without making a loss.

I think you really don't realize how expensive developing a product can be. Just to give you an example, a simple plastic part a few cm/in across, something super basic. The injection mold will cost easy 4-5K$. These molds are not forever, the wear out over time.

Now make a wild guess of how many parts are inside a DPV and multiply by 5K$ (at least because the price I gave is for a very trivial/basic part).

Now that wouldn't be a problem if you build thousands of DPV a year, spoiler, not the case. So one way or another you have to make up these costs. Oh and I forget, 5k$ is only if you manage to produce the final mold production from the first attempt, if you do any modification to anything (which you will) you of course can pay again for a new mold. So whatever number you came up with first... Increase it by at least 50% ...|

------------

Now of course the battery needs certification, like the CE certification and an additional certification to be air travel certified UN 38.3.
Let's just say that just this will cost you easy 50-100k$ / certification.
So take a wild guess how many DPVs can be sold per year, amortize over 5 years (maybe less/more), and you have a certification cost per battery module.

Oh and of course, the DPV itself needs to be CE certified too, so let's add another more complex certification on top.

------------
Long story, these products, just like CCRs, are not high volume (10k+ units/year), you can't just say there's a 6-10x markup. Simply because it's not true.
A good quality cell will cost easy 7-10$/cell (let's just agree that you don't want in your scooter no-name chinese cells at 2$ a piece), I don't think to be widly off in terms of price. Anyone who home build DPV battery packs should be able to confirm.
About 10Wh/cell (depends on the cell.

58 cells required * 8.5$ (middle of range) = +/- 500$ of just cells (edit: this is just a guesstimate, fundamentally even if it was free... It wouldn't dramatically impact the cost of the pack, the point of this message is to highlight that battery cells are a small % of the final price for a good reason).

So just here, we are below your 6-10x range ... So clearly your assumption makes no sense.
Adds the manufacturing costs, shipping costs, import taxes, development costs, testing costs, and certification costs, and paying the dealers & distributors.
I wish you a very good luck to make a significantly cheaper product.

------------

But you know, it's good news. The battery plug is non proprietary, and perfectly available online. I beg you to do better and show everyone how to offer affordable battery packs. Maybe you can even make good business and make huge money (I mean ... Not if you want to sell your packs for 500$ for sure )
View attachment 753740

I'm not arguing with you on the point it costs a lot to design and develop a product. I even mentioned the same in my two prior posts that these are low volume products and they have to recover costs in one way or another.

I understand injection molds are expensive to setup and development costs and all that, but my point is that in relation to the rest of the DPV these are by far the highest marked up piece on it. Coincidentally, these are also the parts that they will make the most of (except perhaps orings and replaceable seals) and should have the highest economies of scale.

There's simply no way that even close to 50% of the cost of the DPV (inclusive of design and manufacturing costs) is the battery, yet it reflects nearly 50% of the total price when it comes time for a battery swap. So, in effect, they taking two vastly different margins on the same product depending on whether it's an initial purchase or maintenance purchase. Whether that is overall cost recovery or an opportunity to make a buck is hard to say, probably a bit of both.

This seems to be a conscious business strategy by Seacraft to use battery replacements as a profit and cost recovery center rather than charging those costs during the initial sale of the DPV. Many other businesses do this too and it's a perfectly valid strategy.

However, I would much rather buy a DPV or product that charges me all those costs up front instead of using batteries or consumables as a major revenue stream. It's Seacraft's choice to operate in this manner... Dive Logic seems to be capable of doing this just fine in the same high end DPV market, and DiveX doesn't even sell batteries at all yet manages to recover their costs and still profit.

This is only my personal preference as a consumer since I'm a stickler about considering lifetime costs when making any major purchase like this.

As far as the DIY aspect... I'm happy to hear it's not a proprietary connector. It's hard to find details online, but if there's no fancy board in there that locks out after over discharge or faults it might make it repairable for folks that know what they're doing. It might even be possible to 3d print a case and fill it with a bms and 9 3000 mah 18650s in series since that's probably what's in there given the rated voltage and capacity.

I might be working on a (non Seacraft) DPV battery project at the moment, but we'll see where that goes

Cheers!

 

[Manatee Diver]

Dene got his hands on one, haven't watched the video yet, but I figured others might be interested in his unboxing/review.

 

[Wibble]

DISCLAIMER: No official number below, just somehow "educated" guess. Numbers can be argued, the point is to show that battery cells do not constitute 90% of the price of manufacturing a product like this, even 50% final customer price would be virtually impossible to sell without making a loss.

I think you really don't realize how expensive developing a product can be. Just to give you an example, a simple plastic part a few cm/in across, something super basic. The injection mold will cost easy 4-5K$. These molds are not forever, the wear out over time.

Now make a wild guess of how many parts are inside a DPV and multiply by 5K$ (at least because the price I gave is for a very trivial/basic part).

Now that wouldn't be a problem if you build thousands of DPV a year, spoiler, not the case. So one way or another you have to make up these costs. Oh and I forget, 5k$ is only if you manage to produce the final mold production from the first attempt, if you do any modification to anything (which you will) you of course can pay again for a new mold. So whatever number you came up with first... Increase it by at least 50% ...|

------------

Now of course the battery needs certification, like the CE certification and an additional certification to be air travel certified UN 38.3.
Let's just say that just this will cost you easy 50-100k$ / certification.
So take a wild guess how many DPVs can be sold per year, amortize over 5 years (maybe less/more), and you have a certification cost per battery module.

Oh and of course, the DPV itself needs to be CE certified too, so let's add another more complex certification on top.

------------
Long story, these products, just like CCRs, are not high volume (10k+ units/year), you can't just say there's a 6-10x markup. Simply because it's not true.
A good quality cell will cost easy 7-10$/cell (let's just agree that you don't want in your scooter no-name chinese cells at 2$ a piece), I don't think to be widly off in terms of price. Anyone who home build DPV battery packs should be able to confirm.
About 10Wh/cell (depends on the cell.

58 cells required * 8.5$ (middle of range) = +/- 500$ of just cells (edit: this is just a guesstimate, fundamentally even if it was free... It wouldn't dramatically impact the cost of the pack, the point of this message is to highlight that battery cells are a small % of the final price for a good reason).

So just here, we are below your 6-10x range ... So clearly your assumption makes no sense.
Adds the manufacturing costs, shipping costs, import taxes, development costs, testing costs, and certification costs, and paying the dealers & distributors.
I wish you a very good luck to make a significantly cheaper product.

------------

But you know, it's good news. The battery plug is non proprietary, and perfectly available online. I beg you to do better and show everyone how to offer affordable battery packs. Maybe you can even make good business and make huge money (I mean ... Not if you want to sell your packs for 500$ for sure )
View attachment 753740

To paraphrase... This makes using other manufacturer's batteries, such as DeWalt, a very good thing and far cheaper than building a proprietary and very low volume battery pack yourself.

It amazes me that it's taken so long to come up with standardised battery packs for the many medium power requirements: from DPVs to electric pushbikes to home electricity storage.

 

[Shabaday]

I mean, I do have 25 years in dive gear sales/knowledge. I research everything and then become a dealer on what I believe is the best product.

So what regulators do you recommend? Like which do you consider the best of the best for all around use

 

[Shabaday]

I’m in Paris this week. Call me Monday. 407-304-9288. My name is Peter. You need the money before the next hurricane

Are you the CEO / Founder BlueWater Wake Surf?

 

[serpentara]

I am thrilled to see this technology trickle down from the high end scooters. I adore my Genesis 2.1 but not everyone can afford (or needs) that scooter. There is a gaping hole in the ~$4000 USD market that is waiting to be filled.

I can only hope that customer service is decent and they don't have to ship everything out of the country.

 

[stuartv]

I agree. I am heavily considering the Genesis 3.0 for my next scooter when I purchase a "big kid" scooter. I'm planning on doing that next winter.

Ultimately I am running into range issues for the dives I want to do even with the 20Ah batteries in my Blacktips. I just want a more reliable scooter with more thrust and a larger battery.

Just FYI, the Go has 1 more pound of thrust than a BlackTip.

Hi everyone,

As one of the Seacraft dealers. Let me clear out some questions I've seen here and there.

- yes the price is with all 6 battery segments
- the reason why seacraft scooters are so much more efficient, reliable and silent than our competitors is because we used a water-cooled AC brushless motor. Unlike most other brands which will use brushed motors. So no unfortunately Wh are absolutely not equivalent. They are tightly coupled to the motor efficiency.
- Magnetic prop which means no bearing no shaft. Heavily reduce the risk of leak.
- Housing compression screw as all the other models that ensure highest flood resistance (who said you need a vacuum pump for your scooter )
- Comes with all the classic seacraft Goodies such as removable prop under water and virtually inexistant maintenance (bushing can be changed after a few hundreds of hours).
- Total weight under 10kg with everything
- Battery modules are TSA certified you can take up to 20 in your carry on luggage.
- one module fails? No problem. You can run the scooter on a single battery module if you like ensuring that a battery failure won't ruin your dive or vacation.
- 9 gears with a pre swirl stator to counter act the torque on your wrist (one finger steering).
- 1 reverse gear
- Can be trimmed perfectly neutral and flat
- 3 modes : freediving / spearfishing, beginner and advanced scuba
- we expects a range of 3.5h on cruise speed (gear 5) depending on config.
- oh and of course external charging port because why would you need to open the scooter to charge. Opening any scooter is taking a slight risk to damage the surfaces or o ring. We want you to do that only when strictly necessary. Such as traveling.

Retail price in the US: +/- 4100$
Delivery starts in February

This scooter will no doubt be a total hit, it's the best scooter in its category by a mile. I encourage you to not trust me and come test it in Miami FL with me

Feel free to contact me privately if you have questions or want to pass an order. If you're outside of Florida no sales tax (only shopping to the US).

Taking pre-orders immediately.

Jonathan
Owner Blueworldexplorers.com

The BlackTip is virtually silent.

With free, available software, which anyone can load on their BlackTip, the BlackTip also has a Reverse gear available. And Cruise Control.

With my BlackTip and Cruise Control enabled, I can EASILY drive/steer it with one finger.

The BlackTip specs (Travel & Tech) claim 123 minutes of run time at cruising speed, using DeWalt 12 Ah batteries. My experience with several BlackTips is that they well exceed that spec. I can only speculate that the number was determined when the BlackTip first came out. Not long after initial release, Dive-X released updated firmware which made the BlackTip virtually silent in operation and also more efficient. Perhaps that also accounts for having longer run time than the spec says. I cannot say what the run time is, but I've run mine for 2 hours and the batteries still showed 2 bars of charge left. I would make a total SWAG of somewhere between 150 and 180 minutes for the actual run time at cruising speed, with 2 X DeWalt 12 Ah batteries.

I looked at the Go at DEMA. I was told the price was still subject to change but was expected to be USD$4,000 in the US. Dealer margins are very slim, so I don't expect to see them discounted much if any.

When I bought my BlackTip, 10% off retail was easy to get and I suspect that remains true. That would put a Tech at around $1900.

DeWalt 12Ah batteries have come back down to earthly price levels. They are now available again at around $220 each.

So, with a $100 charger, you could be ready to dive a BT Tech for $2440.

I do think the Go is a better scooter. At the same all-in price, I would opt for the Go. But, at $4000 vs $2500, I'd be very hard pressed to pay that much more for a scooter with the same thrust and the battery tradeoff that it offers (30 - 60 minutes more run on one dive vs ability to quickly swap to fresh batteries for a second dive). Also, having Cruise Control on the BT is nice!

For not much more than one Go, you could have 2 BT Techs, with batteries for both!

Also, I have the Travel and Tech tubes for my BT. If I'm not cave diving, the Travel tube is generally my preference. Shorter and lighter and more nimble in the water. It's trim when driving, and when I'm stopped, in open water, having it turn nose up doesn't bother me. It's still neutrally buoyant. And it is $200 less than the Tech.

Like several other posters, when I'm ready for something better than the BT, I am aiming for a Genesis. And when I eventually get that, I think a BT Tech will be perfectly adequate as a backup scooter for cave diving. So, why spend more than the BT, unless you're spending all the way up to serious cave scooter levels?

If you just need more runtime than a Travel/Tech has, you can buy a BT Exploration and double the runtime - for even more than a Go offers. And still be in for around $3000 (with batteries). Same thrust, longer run time, save $1000....

If the Go had more thrust than the BT, this would be a very different analysis. But, the BT has 57#.

BlackTip Travel

Shipping Now: New App Enabled Scooters Weighing in at just 24lbs, the BlackTip Travel combines the best of Dive Xtras' powerful scooter performance with a lower cost and more travel-friendly design! If you travel a large amount and weight is critical, then the Travel model is still your best...

dive-xtras.com

And the Go has 260N, which is 58#.

Underwater Scooter SEACRAFT GO! at Best Price

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And, just for reference, the big boy scooters weigh in like this:

Genesis 3.1 - 90# - Genesis 3.1 - Logic Dive Gear
Seacraft Future - 340N == 76# - Underwater DPV Scooter SEACRAFT FUTURE at Best Price
Subgravity Reference RS - 74# - Sub Gravity DPVs
Dive-X Cuda X - 108# (for 1 minute duration - spec not given for Max Continuous Thrust) - CudaX Tech
Dive-X Piranha - 73# - Piranha Series