Tadao Ebisu Board review.

ollytheosteo · 08-28-2009, 07:32 AM

I know this is probably only so useful as most of the hardcore AKA fans will already have their boards and will have cuddled them for a bit and then fitted them by now, but for anyone still considering it here's a quick review and description of the fitting process. I bought boards to upgrade an early (#00412) Excal and a 2004 Viking to make life easier when playing UK tourneys at 10.5 bps and to allow me more setting up options, also they were new and shiny

The boards come packaged in a nice solid hard case;

which opens to reveal the board, manual, RF link, USB cable, a clear data port cover and some stickers

Build quality seems very good, with none of the wobbly sockets etc found on some boards and a nice protective coating over everything. A closer look at the board reveals a few nice touches;

You can see the USB port, and also that the sockets on the underside of the board have been marked with batt, trigg and on off legends to make installation that bit easier. The silver and black rectangle between the sockets and LED is a button that de/activates the tournament lock when held in for a few seconds, and can be reached from outside the tray via the data port. No more pin fiddling or heading onto the field hoping no one checks for rainbow LED shenanigans after changing settings in a hurry.

Installation is a drop-in process (kinda like fighting an octopus with molex connectors for tentacles but that's the price you pay for modularity), made easier by the board markings and a handy diagram for the other sockets in the manual;

If you want to use RF it's just plug in and go, although the amount of metal in the tray means you might have to get a bit creative finding a spot for the chip to sit and still transmit clearly.

Once fitted the boards recognised both markers and came online with all the necessary functions in all the right places, although once in Tengu the Viking did read as set in Excal mode until I changed it using the interface (more details below). A close look at this pic shows the tourney lock button that can be reached easily with a small probe for an easier life. The LED is the usual nice bright unit but it's worth noting there's no support for the rear LED, no great loss.

So all fitted and in place, time to check out the Tengu interface, the name always makes me think of this guy for some reason...

But anyway, it's easily downloaded and installed from the website and once in place just turn the gun off and plug it in, and the interface allows you to start wrecking your gun

with no trying to count with your hands full

and nary a flashing light in sight. You can adjust pretty much anything you might wish, with dwell adjustable in 0.5ms steps and BPS in 0.1 for getting as close to the line as possible. It's very simple and you can save up to five profiles with different settings for different rules or occasions. Tadao have also included the crucial 'return to defaults' setting but with all the info laid out in front of you on the screen it's much harder to get lost. The LED still allows changes via the classic trigger method so you don't need your laptop at the field, and while there's no screen it's still a big step up in ease of adjustment.

Ok, so that's the fitting and setup taken care of, I'm off to play on Sunday so will do some testing then but a quick backyard blatt shows a very smooth and consistent semi in the Excal and consistent 10bps ramping in the Vike, more to follow once I get them over a BPS meter etc so stay tuned...

heisman01 · 08-28-2009, 10:18 AM

man i need to get one of these

Shawn_Savage · 08-28-2009, 01:55 PM

Like I said on MCB, I got to play with mine yesterday. I really enjoyed it. This board does great things and the USB is great since I no longer need an old desktop to program a pandora board.

PalmerGuy · 08-28-2009, 02:24 PM

Great post Olly. My son and I are both enjoying our new Ebisu boards in our Vikings. Heads have rolled at our local field

I'm sure that you will also enjoy the new life in your old AKA markers! Again, props to Will and Tadao....

As an aside, my son is now occasionally buying paint for the two of us. After installing his Ebisu board with an *elevated* ramping bps setting, he aired up his Viking and let 'er rip. First thing he said after the initial look of awe was, "That sounds expensive."

heisman01 · 08-28-2009, 06:05 PM

yeah i just caved and payed retail

lopez17 · 08-28-2009, 07:30 PM

I bought mine today from Will at the USPL event. Looking forward to slapping it into my Excal in a few minutes. As usual, I really like what he did with it! One of the Pevs guys put his into his excal today and it seemed to be shooting pretty damn smooth. It's nice to have the USB interface to do all the adjusting from here on out.

Up the snake · 08-28-2009, 11:00 PM

^^ he's talkin bout me

this thing is beast, and i love the flashing colors!! hahaha yea its beast lol, shoots really smooth, gata adjust my settings and regulators, but other then that it shoots crazy smooth.

dont think ill be putting it to use tomarow at USPL, but i will wreck some walkon's and pts people with it

No1bushman · 08-29-2009, 12:18 PM

My question is, is it worth replacing your existing Tadao boards.

I dont realy notice a lot of difference between my Tadao's and my Pandoras or WAS boards.

Olly where do you play in the UK. Supposed to have a school reunion in '10. near Plymouth.

lopez17 · 08-29-2009, 04:37 PM

Having had a Musashi in my Excal at one point I would say yes, it's worth replacing. The additional options and the functionality of the Ebisu, (just from what I've seen in the last two days) would make it a worthwhile replacement.

yuik (Banned) · 08-29-2009, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No1bushman

My question is, is it worth replacing your existing Tadao boards.

I dont realy notice a lot of difference between my Tadao's and my Pandoras or WAS boards.

Olly where do you play in the UK. Supposed to have a school reunion in '10. near Plymouth.

cheater modes (like shooting uncapped on breakout then dropping to 10 bps millenium ramping).

auto response mode

bettery battery life i think

thats about it.

lopez17 · 08-29-2009, 06:00 PM

The ebisu is also programmable through the USB, it has seven fire mode settings for PSP/NXL/International tournament play; adjustable caps to be compliant and from what I've seen the eye logic on the Excals is a little more dynamic than anything else out to date too. Can't speak to the battery life yet, but my excal was shooting significantly smoother yesterday with the Ebisu than it ever did with the Equalizer I took out. I was seriously impressed with the board and what it did for my Excalibur after doing some extensive tinkering with it last night. Even talked to Will about it this morning to offer my kudos on the capability.

Shawn_Savage · 08-29-2009, 09:46 PM

Mostly it just gives you an insane amount of control. You can up your bps by the .1 bps increments. It's got a lot of per second reading going on for the trigger. The USB makes it great so you don't need to find an old computer with a huge printer port (pandora)

heisman01 · 08-29-2009, 10:48 PM

yeah i mostly got it cause my was board doesnt hold the 10 bps coding itll set to ramp but just shoots uncapped no matter what

georgeyew · 08-29-2009, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lopez17

I bought mine today from Will at the USPL event.

I didn't see a set up for Tadao today at the event. Did I miss it?

VicodinES · 08-30-2009, 08:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by georgeyew

I didn't see a set up for Tadao today at the event. Did I miss it?

They were in the first tent on the vendor's side as you came down the hill from the parking. It was Bob Long's crew and Will was in there with them. Blast didn't have any banners, and there was a small Tadao banner on the table Will was working at. If you're going back today, they're still there.

VicodinES · 08-30-2009, 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No1bushman

My question is, is it worth replacing your existing Tadao boards.

I dont realy notice a lot of difference between my Tadao's and my Pandoras or WAS boards.

Yes and No. It gives you a hell of a lot more options. If you play tournament ball, and really want to dial it in, or want to be able to adjust to new shooting rules that seem to be changing every year, then yes, considering that if you're going to be mailing it in from overseas to get reflashed, how much will that cost with insurance?

If you just play rec ball, and don't have any need other than one pull one shot, then probably not.

Something else to consider is that Will took a pretty big risk to redesign the board and re-write the code (at least 3 times) for the new boards, and have new windows made for the ports under the assumption that there was enough demand from the AKA community to make it worthwhile for him to do that. I don't know how many boards he's sold, or how many he needed to sell to break even, but he didn't ask for the money up front from the "if tadao made a board, would you buy it" thread. He's willing to support the AKA community, so maybe we should support him by buying his boards (if you can afford it, I realize that many people are barely scraping by).

heisman01 · 09-01-2009, 02:27 PM

just hooked mine up and shot it, man what a difference

veinti23 · 09-04-2009, 03:12 PM

i want to grab one of these

lopez17 · 09-04-2009, 08:20 PM

You should totally do it. I just showed Vicodin what my Excal now does with the Tadao in it. He was very impressed with the speed difference alone between it and the WAS Equalizer that used to be in there. And I have the older MAC noids in my excal. Like night and day.

georgeyew · 09-04-2009, 10:27 PM

Lopez, pardon my ignorance. I thought that there was a physical limitation on the MAC noids. How could the new board overcome that?

BTW, I got a Tadao for my purple Viking. I haven't tried it out on the field yet. But I like the blinky blue light

bloodgod · 09-08-2009, 12:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VicodinES

Something else to consider is that Will took a pretty big risk to redesign the board and re-write the code (at least 3 times) for the new boards, and have new windows made for the ports under the assumption that there was enough demand from the AKA community to make it worthwhile for him to do that. I don't know how many boards he's sold, or how many he needed to sell to break even, but he didn't ask for the money up front from the "if tadao made a board, would you buy it" thread. He's willing to support the AKA community, so maybe we should support him by buying his boards (if you can afford it, I realize that many people are barely scraping by).

This statement alone made me decide to purchase one of these boards!