Knockoff is the New Black

[FinalGlideAus]

First off, increase your TPA a little for the 5030 props. You'll find the quad will go faster and the motors will run cooler.

Secondly, why are people still running those GF5030 props? I just don't understand it. They are the biggest piles of junk I have come across since getting into FPV quads. They, bend, loose tracking, vibrate, flaten out and flex under load which reduces speed and handling and are all round bad props. At the very least put some HQ 5x4 props on there. It will be night and day. If you really want fun then cut down some HQ glass/nylon 6x4.5 props to 5 inch. I've never bench tested the cobra 1950's on 6" HQ but I'd say it would take the full span as well. The SS2204 will take a 6x4.5 on 4s but it is really pushing it.

 

[jhitesma]

Well, I'm using a few 5030 gemfans tonight for two reasons:

1) I still have 2 sets of them and while they are unabashedly junk...I can't bring myself to throw them away.

2) I expect some crashes testing this new frame and I only have two sets of HQ's left so until I get another order in this week I want to save them for once I've got any major issues worked out.

Does FC make a 5"? I don't see any on himodel...The HQ's are better than the FC's...but the FC's are so much cheaper I wouldn't mind having some FC's for bashing around and testing on. Their 6045 is at least decent...but that's a bit much for these 1804 motors. I could cut them down (I have some good heavy duty scissors that make short work of it I found) but I'd rather not have to bother....

Don't see myself buying anything gemfan again though. At least not in 5" or 6". I had heard decent things about their 8" but I'm pretty happy with the HK nylon's for my quad that uses 8". (And I still have a stack of carbon props I've been meaning to try on that quad and a big box of 8" Nylons but I almost never break props anymore on that quad so I'm not in a big rush to buy more 8" props anytime too soon!)

 

[ssteve]

I just picked up a bunch of hq 6" props for my twitch hex. I usually run the gf5030 on my quad cause I crash it so much and they are dirt cheap, but on the hex they give it some really odd vibrations under full throttle on the hex. Really looking forward to trying the 6" props though. Picked up a bunch of the 6x3's and a set of the 6x4.5's as well. Pretty sure the 4.5's will be too much for the dys1806's so I'll have to baby it a bit.

 

[jhitesma]

You'll like those 6x3's - the HQ props in general are great and those are the biggest most aggressive prop I'd run on the DYS1806.

I tried the 6x4.5's on my DYS1806 and they flew nice...but the motors got hotter than I liked...fast. After just a minute of gentle hovering they were hitting 150f already. On the 6030's flying semi-aggressively they only hit 115-120 after a full pack.

The FC 6" props are a good compromise of price/performance/quality but are hard to find and they don't do a 6030 or anything in 5" as far as I can tell. They're not hard to cut down...but I just feel wasteful cutting them down and the DYS motors still seem to run a little warm with them even cut down.

 

[x0054]

On the subject of those 250mm H-Quad knockoffs, I wanted to post a little tip. I think this would equally apply to the blackout quad. Replace the bolts that connect the arms to the body with rivets. It saves about 10-12 grams in wait, looks a lot nicer, and gives you a nice failure point if you run in arm first into something really hard.

On the side note of the Blackout frame price, things sell for what they sell for, and thumbs up to the guy for making money. But, just to keep it in perspective, recently I designed in AutoCAD my own frame. I am still working on it, but I wanted to see how much it would cost to have someone CNC cut it for me. The frame is roughly the same size as the Blackout, but a perfect square, with some other features I really wanted, like an integrated camera pivot. I found a company in Wisconsin who will cut it out for me for $140. That's material and labor! If I was to produce 100 units in their shop, they said it would be $65 per copy in materials and labor, and they assured me that they use only high quality pure carbon fiber. Orders of 1,000 units or more would be even cheeper.

Any way, those are my 2 cents on the subject.

 

[FinalGlideAus]

Well, I'm using a few 5030 gemfans tonight for two reasons:

1) I still have 2 sets of them and while they are unabashedly junk...I can't bring myself to throw them away.

2) I expect some crashes testing this new frame and I only have two sets of HQ's left so until I get another order in this week I want to save them for once I've got any major issues worked out.

Does FC make a 5"? I don't see any on himodel...The HQ's are better than the FC's...but the FC's are so much cheaper I wouldn't mind having some FC's for bashing around and testing on. Their 6045 is at least decent...but that's a bit much for these 1804 motors. I could cut them down (I have some good heavy duty scissors that make short work of it I found) but I'd rather not have to bother....

Don't see myself buying anything gemfan again though. At least not in 5" or 6". I had heard decent things about their 8" but I'm pretty happy with the HK nylon's for my quad that uses 8". (And I still have a stack of carbon props I've been meaning to try on that quad and a big box of 8" Nylons but I almost never break props anymore on that quad so I'm not in a big rush to buy more 8" props anytime too soon!)

FC make a 3 blade 5x4.5 prop which should run OK on the 1806 motors.The 1806 motors run just fine on 5 inch props and yes they will run a 6x3 but the performance drops off compared to a 2204 motor. 6 inch props are where the 2204 motors really start to come into their own and is the reason why I never buy 1806 motors.

 

[FinalGlideAus]

On the subject of those 250mm H-Quad knockoffs, I wanted to post a little tip. I think this would equally apply to the blackout quad. Replace the bolts that connect the arms to the body with rivets. It saves about 10-12 grams in wait, looks a lot nicer, and gives you a nice failure point if you run in arm first into something really hard.

On the side note of the Blackout frame price, things sell for what they sell for, and thumbs up to the guy for making money. But, just to keep it in perspective, recently I designed in AutoCAD my own frame. I am still working on it, but I wanted to see how much it would cost to have someone CNC cut it for me. The frame is roughly the same size as the Blackout, but a perfect square, with some other features I really wanted, like an integrated camera pivot. I found a company in Wisconsin who will cut it out for me for $140. That's material and labor! If I was to produce 100 units in their shop, they said it would be $65 per copy in materials and labor, and they assured me that they use only high quality pure carbon fiber. Orders of 1,000 units or more would be even cheeper.

Any way, those are my 2 cents on the subject.

Just use aluminum bolts with lock nuts. As you use the quad the arms slightly move and get play and you have to nip up the lock nuts over time. You can't do this with rivets. Maybe you need weak points on a knockoff but there is no need on a higher quality frame.

On the topic of making your own frame, yes there is a profit margin involved. Whats the point in all the effort if there is no gain in it for him. I know approximately how much the frames are costing him to make each and like I said they could be maybe $20 cheaper but there gets a point where it's not worth the effort. So you want to lay down lets say $3000 on an order of new frames in bulk and you're going off their word that they use "high quality carbon". Please tell me where they get their supply from. What is the layup? is it laminated or pre-peg carbon. Ok so you can't trust their word so you build some protoypes to test. Problem is now you're too busy or you want others opinions so you build 10 protos and send them to trusted pilots to test. Now you find a few design flaws which need to be fixed before you sell the frame so you design an updated version but that needs to be tested to. Off you go to build another 10 proto's. All this while you're putting plenty of time and cash into things but making nothing. And what if you finally sell it and no one buys it? Finally you get something out their which works really well and gets popular. Next thing you know the Chinese make a cheap knock off cheaper than you can make it yourself at cost and even though the design is floored and the carbon is trash everyone starts asking why are your frames soooo expensive. Are we starting to see the reality of this type of business????

Yes you factored in making the making frames in bulk but did you consider these points as well when looking at time and money put into the business:

Buying in bulk and tying up all that money until the stock has been sold
Stocking all the other associated parts for the business
Shipping to him
shipping to resellers
Running forum threads and supporting the product
Answering emails
Shipping the product out
Dealing with the manufacturer
RnD
All in between time with the family and your regular day job. Seriously guys, I've heard a lot of whinging over what is a minimal amount of money from people who have no idea what effort is involved to run a small business like this. Have you noticed that people like Twitchity who are actually getting some experience in this area have stayed fairly quiet...

I spoke to Soma about this subject the other day and he laughed and said half his profit goes into the time it just takes to talk to customers and associated emails each day. He generally finds he spends at least 2-3 hours a day on emails just related to his Warpquad business. Then there is the forum threads to keep track on and answer the various questions and so on and so on.

BTW: I dare you to lay $65,000 on a bulk order of frames.

 

[x0054]

Like I said, I am not blaming the guy for making the money. Why would he sell the frames for less than he can? That's basically the point of running a business. With a specialty product like this it makes sense to charge more as the customer base isn't that broad. I just pointed out that in US I can have custom frame cut for $140, which means that it's not at all unreasonable to assume that in China you can make almost the same frame at the Blackout quad for $30 or so. I am not saying Blackout should charge $30 for his frame, or even $100, he should sell them for what ever people are willing to pay for them. That's the point of having name recognition and a brand. But, it's wrong to assume that just because something is sold for 1/5 the price, it's automatically 1/5 the value.

I crashed my knockoff frame into pavement, into rocks, and due to a bad battery cell had it fall from 60 or so feet in the air onto rocks. So far it's scratched, but not broken. Oh, and the rivets are holding up just fine. They may loose tension eventually, but so far they are holding up perfectly. It's easy to rill them out and replace them, if necessary. Aluminum bolts are a grate idea though, but they are hard to find locally. I may order a bag for other parts though.

Any way, the frame I got came with some carbon fiber feet that I wasn't going to use, so I broke one of them with pliers, and checked it out under a microscope. It's looks to be all carbon fiber, pretty consistent, cross threaded. I am not an expert on carbon fiber, of course, so I was just looking for consistency. It was pretty hard to brake the part, that's for sure. What would you look for and how would you test carbon fiber?

Any how, again, just my 2 cents. If I was to sell frames, I would also charge the most I can get for them, because I am well aware of the headaches involved in running a business, considering that I am running one. An no, I would not order $65,000 worth of frames on my own dime. That's what Kickstarter is for, at least when it comes to new products.

 

[FinalGlideAus]

All good mate, apologies if I'm sounding blunt. I'm just in a unique position where I get to see a lot of the behind the scenes stuff that goes on with these types of businesses. And no that is not with Blackout. I'm actually moving away from his mini H as I'm building stuff for racing which IMHO is a better and a faster product. I haven't even actually met the guy even though we are only 45min drive away and fly with the same group. I'm sure we'll end up at the same flying meet sometime soon. He's just seems rather busy with his business lately and new prototypes.

It's kind of hard to know the quality of carbon plate unless you know where its been made and how. Most carbon plate is laminated not pre-peg. Pre-peg is the best you can get. Blackout stuff is still only laminated carbon. Break testing is one way, seeing if it just breaks or delaminates. You could start to see delamination between the layers after a few hard hits. A nice 3mm arm should have a metal "ting' to it when you drop it on a floor. If it sounds dull and hollow it is starting to delaminate.

There is standard 90 deg cloth, twill, cloth on a 45deg bias and uni carbon. They all have different properties and can increase bending strength or torsional strength depending on how it's layed up. In the end you can only build it and test...

It's good to hear your knockoff is going well, sounds like you got a good one.

 

[cranialrectosis]

Screw the Chinese knockoffs.

Support your local Twitchity. Of course, if you are in AUS, support your local Soma.

 

[Cyberdactyl]

It's good to hear your knockoff is going well, sounds like you got a good one.

Yes, awesome you're getting a good experience. And that's the bottom line with cheap chinese.

There is definitely some dice rolling when it comes to ordering cheap Chinese. But for $35 vs >$150, that's a gamble many are willing to take, Not everyone in the hobby has the money to buy the latest and most expensive stuff and to also break said stuff and order more. Me being one. Not so much financially based, but to keep everyone in the family from feeling I'm being selfish. I try to rationalize my spending by approaching the hobby from a different angle. Not because I went flying happy-go-lucky wide open through trees and now I need to spend X amount for repairs every weekend. And that is one aspect of Flitetest, many of their episodes seem to explore ways to trash your stuff.

What surprises me is why didn't/don't the Chinese manufacturer's bump the quality of the CF and improve the tooling and add $10 per unit? Then reviews by guys like rcmodelreviews WOULD be justified spending 15 minutes talking about miniscule differences where a hole is drilled to separate a poor design from one that was designed for expected impacts. As I've said before, most of these things are not rocket science, they are simple cut plates from the booms, to the camera isolation plate.

What gets me excited is companies like TBS trying to innovate with MRs such as the Gemini. FT now has a fairly long sneek peek Now, don't get me started why I believe you shouldn't support TBS, but that is separate from their engineering ambitions. And, of course, it's very early in development as Trappy says. Also, by the way, outer shell like the Gemini appears to be perfectly suited for some Kydex.

 

[FinalGlideAus]

"Poor man pays twice"
I found that saying rings true with the cheap Chinese stuff and the HobbyKing junk I have lying in my back draw never to be used again. I don't mind spending a little extra because I know I have to do something quite extreme to break it. With a Chinese knockoff I would actually be flying slower because I would be worried about breaking it and being down a quad.

Oh and with the Gemini, where exactly is the innovation?

 

[jhitesma]

"Poor man pays twice"

Never cared for that saying. Mainly because when I buy cheap I never luck out and only have to buy twice

 

[Cyberdactyl]

I think the, "Poor man pays twice" is only half complete. The second part should read, "If he doesn't choose wisely".

Categorically calling HK items 'junk' is grossly broad.

I have ordered many items from them.

Around twenty+ HK F series ESCs, none has failed. Five KK2s, none have failed. DT750s, none have failed, albeit they need some love before use. Dirt cheap Orange receivers of different flavors, none have failed and work as well as high-end receivers. The glass fiber/polyamide nylon frames are an incredible bargain. Several servos, none have failed. Wire, screws, shrink, carbon fiber plate and round tube, etc., all are great and/or work as they should. Fatshark goggles, Immersion Vtx and antennas, all still working. I realize they are not HK products, but HK sells them.

To be honest, I did order some stuff early on that turned out to be crappy, such as a ESC programming card and some ultra cheap slow-fly props.

But the aspect you might have missed at HK is at the bottom of every single item HK sells has a rating and discussion thread. If you choose to blow off taking a peek at those, then it truly is caveat emptor and probably defines your quote. Which, by the way, is a feature that most 'higher-end' sellers lack. If not for the seller to review and consider, at least for shoppers to review.

Now that HK has a much improved delivery time, the only aspect of the company I have with them is shipping cost.

As to the innovations of the Gemini, it's hard to know them all since it's still in development. And yes, "innovation" may be a too strong a word. I think it's more combining several evolving ideas into one hex.

-It appears angling the motors forward will help level the highly aerodynamic frame and may very well provide some lift, along with leveling the camera. For what it's worth, it's certainly better for a 'racer' to be aerodynamic instead of trying to push a rectangular box through the air.

-They have dropped the booms a bit to raise the frame closer to the lift plane.

-The booms are relatively thin in planform, but thick in profile (appear to be 3 or 4mm). I realize you don't consider squeezing as much TCE as reasonable a variable for continued improvement, but they appear to care. However it does look like some of that thickness is for motor wire trace, so time will tell how rugged the booms turn out to be.

-Having the the electronics as plug-in modular components.

-Trappy says "bind and fly". We'll see have to how well that works.

And who knows what else they may be keeping quiet about until production so others don't take their ideas and run with them. However, judging from current Discovery products, no matter how well it flies, it will most likely be over-priced.

 

[califrag]

It looks like some of the same innovations as the HEXO+ kickstarter. They seem like such similar platforms: the shell, modular design, tilted rotors. I just wonder who came up with them first. The gemini is like the HEXO+ without the tracking aspect

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sqdr/hexo-your-autonomous-aerial-camera

video at 3:28 shows some of this

Either way, I want them both

 

[Cyberdactyl]

Yea, the HEXO+ one was discussed here a few months ago. It does look very similar. I have no idea who was first with the fundamental shape.

 

[FinalGlideAus]

I think the, "Poor man pays twice" is only half complete. The second part should read, "If he doesn't choose wisely".

Categorically calling HK items 'junk' is grossly broad.

I have ordered many items from them.

Around twenty+ HK F series ESCs, none has failed. Five KK2s, none have failed. DT750s, none have failed, albeit they need some love before use. Dirt cheap Orange receivers of different flavors, none have failed and work as well as high-end receivers. The glass fiber/polyamide nylon frames are an incredible bargain. Several servos, none have failed. Wire, screws, shrink, carbon fiber plate and round tube, etc., all are great and/or work as they should. Fatshark goggles, Immersion Vtx and antennas, all still working. I realize they are not HK products, but HK sells them.

To be honest, I did order some stuff early on that turned out to be crappy, such as a ESC programming card and some ultra cheap slow-fly props.

But the aspect you might have missed at HK is at the bottom of every single item HK sells has a rating and discussion thread. If you choose to blow off taking a peek at those, then it truly is caveat emptor and probably defines your quote. Which, by the way, is a feature that most 'higher-end' sellers lack. If not for the seller to review and consider, at least for shoppers to review.

Now that HK has a much improved delivery time, the only aspect of the company I have with them is shipping cost.

As to the innovations of the Gemini, it's hard to know them all since it's still in development. And yes, "innovation" may be a too strong a word. I think it's more combining several evolving ideas into one hex.

-It appears angling the motors forward will help level the highly aerodynamic frame and may very well provide some lift, along with leveling the camera. For what it's worth, it's certainly better for a 'racer' to be aerodynamic instead of trying to push a rectangular box through the air.

-They have dropped the booms a bit to raise the frame closer to the lift plane.

-The booms are relatively thin in planform, but thick in profile (appear to be 3 or 4mm). I realize you don't consider squeezing as much TCE as reasonable a variable for continued improvement, but they appear to care. However it does look like some of that thickness is for motor wire trace, so time will tell how rugged the booms turn out to be.

-Having the the electronics as plug-in modular components.

-Trappy says "bind and fly". We'll see have to how well that works.

And who knows what else they may be keeping quiet about until production so others don't take their ideas and run with them. However, judging from current Discovery products, no matter how well it flies, it will most likely be over-priced.

I buy from HK too but just the small stuff like wire, plugs, and some batteries. Unless I have a specific reason to I never buy important stuff from them. Not even stuff like fatshark goggles since I would rather shoot myself in the foot than deal with their customer service department.

Since both you and TBS have called the Gemini a "racer", let's look into the design a bit. The 10 deg tilt on the motors will help keep the hex flat during "cruising" but when actually going fast they have an angle of 40-80deg tilt. Even taking off 10deg of tilt, that "aerodynamic" body looks rather like a brick to airflow anyway. Lets not get into how tilting the motors now screws up the handling. Others have already been there before and realized this. True drag reduction is made by not using a H quad plan form in the first place. Besides, using 2100kv motors and 4" props the hex will struggle to crack 70-80km/h in the first place and at lower speeds drag is much less of a concern. It's like designing a low speed glider and putting all your effect into reducing profile drag when induced drag is the more important factor. TBS needs to get their hex powerful and fast enough to have drag an important factor. Before that happens the "aerodynamic" body along with the tilted motors is just marketing hype. It seems to be working though and I'm sure they'll sell plenty just cause they "look cool". Also, the smaller the prop, the smaller the disk area and the worse it handles/takes corners. Just when the mini quad world is realizing 6" props are the best size for speed and handling, TBS goes to a 4" prop. Really???

Those arms look flimsy and because they look like one piece and have the motor wire traces on them it'll be pricey to replace. More money for them. Sure you can remove and replace the FC and ESC's if needed but once again only supplied by them. The ESC's are inside without cooling so you can't push the setup any further and I have no interest in flying an "open toilet" FC on a mini racer but you have no choice with this even though the rest of the world has finally realized the ability of Multiwii/Naze32 on FPV minis.

There will be a lot of hypothesizing until people start doing proper organized racing and that is not far away I think. I can see national racing comps like F3D pylon racing in the not too distant future. I even know of people already working on this. Then it's a simple case of first one across the line is the fastest.

 

[FinalGlideAus]

To give you an idea what I'm talking about, here's a private video I've made public to show you. It features racing against a prototype frame that's not public yet so in respect for the designer I will make it private again tomorrow. Note that the Möbius recording the video is mounted at an up tilt of 30deg and has an optional wide angle lens and you still sometimes can't see straight ahead. That is how much of an angle the quad is flying at. The more power, the more tilt.

Please note, because it was a private video only there is some swearing in the background at the start. Oh and that is not me talking. This was my first visit to the track and I had only 1 lap practice before this so I apologize for getting lost... Twice .

Now imagine this racing with 6 or so other pilots at the same time. Sound fun???

http://youtu.be/8bDjxpuj5mw

 

[jhitesma]

Despite your comment on the video it looked like you hit that bottom turn pretty well around the 2:15 mark...but seemed like your quad let you down a bit and didn't have any more oomph to pull out of it

Fun looking course. Makes me miss trees. And makes me want to get a mini FPV setup going as while I may lack trees I do have big desert washes with interesting terrain I've been dying to fly through FPV by my knuckle is a bit too big and slow for. More friends with quads would help too. Really gotta get my coworker to finally pick one up, he's been talking about getting one for a year but since he doesn't have a good TX yet he's stuck to his FP micro heli's. Need to talk to his fiance about getting him a TX for Christmas this year

 

[MT Alex]

http://youtu.be/8bDjxpuj5mw

Nice landing!