E'mail recieved from Alan Bond this morning.
Just to clarify the situation :-
The unit currently on sale from Technobots is a ready built and tested 'professional' version of the previous self assembly 'hobbyist' kit launched over 18 months ago, and you will doubtless have heard it running in my pusher tug at the pond. The improvements are really about smaller, neater packaging and the speaker/power and receiver/ESC terminations. The sounds and features remain identical to those of the previous kit. There are three variants (petrol, diesel or steam) which are chosen at the point of purchase and the only user configuration available is to set the number of cylinders (2 to 6 petrol & diesel or 1 to 6 for steam)
The enhanced unit still in development allows user adjustment of tickover, top speed, number of cylinders (I will be scoping 8 and 12 as well), selection of a number of different engine 'voices' of petrol and diesel character (I have 6 to demo at the moment), speaker volume, idling time-out period, throttle channel 'span' and neutral setting - as well as user selectable options for twin throttle use, automatic or manual start/stop of engine and an adjustable pitch horn.
The significantly greater cost of the hardware to support all these features means the ENHANCED unit will be just that - it is not intended a replacement for the current unit (which we might describe as the BASIC one suitable for smaller boats). The enhanced unit addresses the requirements of bigger boats and I would consider that all the features put it at the top end of the market (for synthesized engine sounds that is!). Again, it would only be available as a ready built and tested 'professional' build standard unit from Technobots.
The cost of the enhanced unit is still unknown, but I'm guessing that if it can't be sold for less than £50 then it is unlikely to be a commercial success and will probably never see the light of day except in my own boats!