LiftX hybrid high performance efoil/ foil assist

The X-foils Podcast Case #30-Lift5 and LiftX Tech with Director of Industrial Design Cameron Magness.

In Case 30 of The X-Foils podcast
Walt and I sit down with the Director of Industrial Design for Lift Foils We dive into his personal foiling journey and explore Lift’s role in taking their efoil line to the next level. The introduction of the Lift5 and the LiftX—an efoil/foil assist geared towards surf—steals the spotlight for us as its more ranged at the high performance surf. But the real game-changer is the product overhaul. With a new click-in, snap-on design, Lift has eliminated cables and tools, making it arguably the easiest electric foil to put together on the market.

All your Foils are still all crossed over if you are a lift rider. But the mast, batterie is all new for this year Lift5 and LiftX

:zap: Join the conversation: What do you think of Lift’s new designs? Drop your thoughts below!
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$14k!! What a world!

That’s a lot of expensive epoxy

Its certainly the efoil I would buy if I hit it big in Vegas. Checks all the boxes except maybe an option for a smaller light weight performance battery option, and that seems like it could be implemented down the line. But for now I’ll just hope that someone else wants to sell me their foildrive for cheap to jump on to the next greatest toy ever.

Is the target market people who own yachts and beach resorts? :sweat_smile:

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Why wouldn’t they engineer this so that you can flip the mast to change from the hi or low motor? Seems obvious. I guess if you are paying this price you don’t care about buying two masts.

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Make sense. Tuttle style on each end. Fuse isolates and protects the unused end.

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Zuckerberg is definitely gonna have a quiver!!!

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because they would need the wires to come out of both the top and the bottom some-how. doesn’t seem easy to me

That said, I saw this and immediately wanted one of each: 1) teach my kids with a low mounted efoil + blowfish to make the board stable 2) run it foildrive style for my self

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There aren’t wire connections. I think it is a contact connection, which looks pretty cool. So while the wires would need to run through the mast to both ends (and there would need to be contacts at both ends) there aren’t external wires to connect.

I could see a Cedrus style baseplate working with a mast that could be flipped (albeit harder to engineer with the bolts and contact connections so close).

Either way, the cost of a second mast isn’t what’s preventing me from buying this $15k unit!

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If you look at how the pod is so low drag and engineered, you can see why it’s not possible to move the pod and it’s a total integrated mast.
They don’t want screws, nuts, and bolts and extra Dragged to make it movable.

Understand why the prop can’t move. I was suggesting the ability to flip the mast entirely to switch from high to low.

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I’ve been on the sidelines feeling like FD is too janky and waiting to see what AMPJet looks like. Not sure if I would buy LiftX but I don’t think the pricing is totally outrageous. A high end FD setup easily runs +$10k, and maybe the Lift setup will have better performance, design / fit / quality, reliability, and easier day to day maintenance (I think you have to disassemble each piece of FD and rinse on every use).

I think my open question is if the LiftX setup will be too heavy?

Small set up is 43lb
My FD max power, is about 23

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Yeah I’m curious how that feels in flight for carving. Most of the weight is centered right at the rider’s feet, so the board and foil might still rotate around the center of mass well?

On price again, I think LiftX competes with wings (and parawings?), so price wise one LiftX kit isn’t super far from a normal multi-wing multi-foil multi-board wing setup to cover light to strong winds, and this allows you to ride your performance board and performance foil in all conditions.

Why the hell is liftx so heavy, I mean it’s gotta be just dead weight? It’s not like lift doesn’t know how to make lightweight boards they were well known for their non motorized boards and foils. Also do you know why the lift motor sticks out so much while fd is so much shorter. Is it because the controller PCB is there. Why not move it to somewhere else more hydrodynamic. I am also surprised they haven’t made the motor the end part of the fuse like the takuma vaporware. I mean that’s gotta be the best of both worlds

They are running an inrunner (pretty much maintenance free vs outrunner which you have to clean and re-lube after every session. Also there inrunner is most likely smaller diameter maybe 56mm vs FD 63mm. Flite put a 40mm inrunner in the fuse but hade to run a gearbox to get the torque which is more hydrodynamic but comes at the expense of more noise. Lift X is also running a battery that will be around 700 to 800 Wh so there will be some weight there. No one knows the exact specs but you can’t have a 5kw motor and larger battery and expect it to weigh the same as a FD.

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In a podcast there was mention the motor is 55mm. Make sense that it needs to be so long, just a shame it looks a bit silly.

I’m sure they ran CFD to calculate the speed spot for power, length, diameter and drag.

Not trying to give more bad input, but I think that the prop sticks too far back.
I ride a DIY foil-assist and try not to place the mast too far back to avoid interference with leash/flesh
PS: the system might come out to market (insta @eboofoil)