I bought a 2.6 APM from them. It didn't work on the battery, only USB. Their response was fast. But, it cost me $13 to return it to China, and then it took 8 weeks to get a replacement (which works fine).
thanks for the answers.. I will take that note, so for a expensive hardware/frame like sky hero I will use 3d robotic APM I guess while for messing around with cheap HK frame maybe I can start with copy APM or maybe KK Board so I can have better understanding for the concept of different flight controller.
Since it's an allll sooo free and open development and not about one company you can expect the same level of support from the always independent devs.
1. Is it a copy products of 3D robotic? (im sure it is)
3DRobotics releases most of their projects as open-source hardware, this means releasing all the PCB design files for further modifications. Also all their software is open-source, all code can be downloaded and modified/studied by anyone. This means it's free in both definitions (free beer, free of speech).
But hardware cannot be distributed by free, and any company needs a way to have profit. So the price is set by the cost of manufacturing + components + development + profit. And the development is the most expensive part of this sum, especially for a product with such a fast development and low volume of sales.
What happens with those copy is another companies just building the PCBs and selling them, skipping all the overhead of development. This doesn't inflict any legal issues by the license, but violates an ethical principle that is "if you are going to sell them for profit at least do some improvement".
2. Is there any implication to use a copy product? ( operation fail,a legal,etc
For legal liability: I think you are on your own, especialy if you use the clones since you don'ty even know if the seller will be around the next month.
For operations failures: Obliviously you will not be able to use 3DR services to fix your problems, neither their support since you didn't pay for it.
Testing:To test or not to test, that's the question. I think 3DR does at least basic testing of all products that come out of their doors, if the clones even go though a fractional/sample (randomly picking some samples in a batch) test I would be surprised. Since clones doesn't provide any support it's easy not to test and incur with a few dysfunctional units than thoroughly testing them.
About build quality: Since they are the original creators 3DR has already gone though a few revisions to adapt the board to their manufacturing process to give a better yield. See the point above and think about the clones quality.
Replies
I bought a 2.6 APM from them. It didn't work on the battery, only USB. Their response was fast. But, it cost me $13 to return it to China, and then it took 8 weeks to get a replacement (which works fine).
hi guys,
thanks for the answers.. I will take that note, so for a expensive hardware/frame like sky hero I will use 3d robotic APM I guess while for messing around with cheap HK frame maybe I can start with copy APM or maybe KK Board so I can have better understanding for the concept of different flight controller.
Since it's an allll sooo free and open development and not about one company you can expect the same level of support from the always independent devs.
3DRobotics releases most of their projects as open-source hardware, this means releasing all the PCB design files for further modifications. Also all their software is open-source, all code can be downloaded and modified/studied by anyone. This means it's free in both definitions (free beer, free of speech).
But hardware cannot be distributed by free, and any company needs a way to have profit. So the price is set by the cost of manufacturing + components + development + profit. And the development is the most expensive part of this sum, especially for a product with such a fast development and low volume of sales.
What happens with those copy is another companies just building the PCBs and selling them, skipping all the overhead of development. This doesn't inflict any legal issues by the license, but violates an ethical principle that is "if you are going to sell them for profit at least do some improvement".