Dan Adler
New
Hi Y'all,
I was intimately involved with the development Marine Gear) and ultimate demise (TNT Marine) of the K10 Hydrospeeder, () I owned 15 units and never did get them to work well enough to be commercially viable. I was the guy who put them in the (straight to video) "Atlantis" movie, and also the Lara Croft movie. I did the stunt gigs for the Atlantis movie, filming off the Catalina Coastline on the Navy ship "Kelly Chueste". I laughed my ass off when the Lara Croft folks refused to hire me to operate the units, they ended up doing "blue screen" because their "pros' couldnt run the units effectively. (they bought three units from me, and I warned them!, but hey the check cleared lol).
Any one who operated the original K10 (or tried to) understood that their COG and balance was garbage (their natural "at rest" position was upside down and pointing straight up, lol), they weighed too much, cost too much, didnt pack down for shipping, and the original lead acid "pressurized battery system" made them prone to flooding at the drop of a hat.
Long Story Short, over the last couple of years I redesigned around a lighter more evenly buoyant and neutrally balanced chassis, I am now using LI-ION Batteries that weigh 1/4 what the old lead acid medical batteries weighed, and I used sealed batteries and connectors (its not THAT hard to seal a battery lol) along with a simple push button activator on each control fin (I ditched the complicated and glitchy steering controls) for good old analog ON/OFF operation. I kept the 90ft.lb thrusters and left it at 36volts, so the unit still absolutely screams thru the water. I re-engineered the chassis to telescope down to less than 36", so it can operate as a super high powered torpedo style unit, and can be extended to a full unit ninja bike style that was so cool about the original K10. Most importantly I penciled costs and can deliver these at around $5K with two LI-ION Battery Packs. The other massive pain in the ass was that you need a coffin to ship the old unit. I have these packed downed to the roughly 38: X 24" X 24", with detachable motors fins and batteries stored interior to the chassis! In any case I thought I'd post to see if anyone had any interest in these revamped units, I have 4 in final stages of work and testing so far, and have forms and designs to machine and fabricate more if they catch on.
Regards,
Dan Adler
I was intimately involved with the development Marine Gear) and ultimate demise (TNT Marine) of the K10 Hydrospeeder, () I owned 15 units and never did get them to work well enough to be commercially viable. I was the guy who put them in the (straight to video) "Atlantis" movie, and also the Lara Croft movie. I did the stunt gigs for the Atlantis movie, filming off the Catalina Coastline on the Navy ship "Kelly Chueste". I laughed my ass off when the Lara Croft folks refused to hire me to operate the units, they ended up doing "blue screen" because their "pros' couldnt run the units effectively. (they bought three units from me, and I warned them!, but hey the check cleared lol).
Any one who operated the original K10 (or tried to) understood that their COG and balance was garbage (their natural "at rest" position was upside down and pointing straight up, lol), they weighed too much, cost too much, didnt pack down for shipping, and the original lead acid "pressurized battery system" made them prone to flooding at the drop of a hat.
Long Story Short, over the last couple of years I redesigned around a lighter more evenly buoyant and neutrally balanced chassis, I am now using LI-ION Batteries that weigh 1/4 what the old lead acid medical batteries weighed, and I used sealed batteries and connectors (its not THAT hard to seal a battery lol) along with a simple push button activator on each control fin (I ditched the complicated and glitchy steering controls) for good old analog ON/OFF operation. I kept the 90ft.lb thrusters and left it at 36volts, so the unit still absolutely screams thru the water. I re-engineered the chassis to telescope down to less than 36", so it can operate as a super high powered torpedo style unit, and can be extended to a full unit ninja bike style that was so cool about the original K10. Most importantly I penciled costs and can deliver these at around $5K with two LI-ION Battery Packs. The other massive pain in the ass was that you need a coffin to ship the old unit. I have these packed downed to the roughly 38: X 24" X 24", with detachable motors fins and batteries stored interior to the chassis! In any case I thought I'd post to see if anyone had any interest in these revamped units, I have 4 in final stages of work and testing so far, and have forms and designs to machine and fabricate more if they catch on.
Regards,
Dan Adler
