Hi Chris,
This is not a moan, just some small things I would like to see in the next batches of quads to make an excellent product even better.
1. In the first batch I received from JDrones, all but one of the kits had bullet connectors soldered on the motors, except for ONE motor. The last motor had to have bullet connectors soldered. Not a biggie, just could not understand why one was not done the same as the other.
2. Often the bullets are soldered on quite badly, I have taken to resoldering them all as a matter of precaution.
3. The last batch from DIYD had a few minor issues as well. Often there would be one prop adapter missing from the SEALED motor packet. Luckilly I had replaced all mine with better ones, so I could complete these ones for customers.
4. The prop adapters in general are of poor quality. these have to be tightened EXTREMELY well or the will come off in flight, as a few did in the beginning before we started adding locktite to the equation.In the end I replaced all mine with better ones.
5. In the last batches, the GPS lead it too short, preventing one from putting the GPS on the GPS tray. Initial batches had an additional, longer lead which was quite nice. Perhaps only include the longer one.
6. I think it might be an idea to include the Magnetometer in the stock kit. (if it is not already)
Thats all for now.I'll post some more QC niggles as I find them, IF there are any.
Otherwise its all good, we are having SO much fun, and our Arducopter community in south Africa is growing daily. Just here in Cape Town we have a group of 10 quads and hexas flying together.
Regards
Wessie
Replies
Hi !
Glad to get into Arducopter, my first start ever at rc drone flying !
I just ordered a full hexa kit at jdrones.com less than an hour ago, and am looking forward to come in here report how the brand new kit finally shipped ; I hope it will be excellent quality !
Thx again guys for enabling people have fun in their lives and in the same time provide technological challenge, much appreciated ! (webdev newbie inside) :)
I also have the same problem... The cable for the GPS is also too short and there was no cable included for the magnetometer that we bought. Motors and ESC did have the bullets and heatshrink for DIYsoldering. Was nice that the heatshrink was included.
For reference, my kit was bought from the ZA distributer in JHB.
Regards
Gerrit
Wessie,
As you know, DIYDrones manufactures ArduCopter flight electronics and jDrones manufactures ArduCopter frames and other extra parts for them. And we all are working under bigger ArduCopter project.
1-3) Originally all motors had bullets soldered as our internal dev team requests to make them easier to assemble but as we all know there has been some problems on them like soldering as you mentioned and general connection problem. Team came with a solution that we are not pre-solder them anymore and they are just included on motors that jDrones ships. This way if user want to solder they can but as for suggestion from dev team/documents/users it is better to leave them out unless you can secure them properly. Some months ago there were still few motors that had those bullets so you must have gotten shipment during transition time. And as they were soldered already on factory, it would have been difficult for us to open those packets.
We have not shipped out any motors with bullets for months, they are all in small accessory bag inside motor bag. And we check every single bag for those bags, there has been only few bags shipped out without accessory bags and naturally we have shipped them to customers who missed those.
Motors that belong to ArduCopter kits are either colored as magenta or yellow, they have 35cm long cables with colors or Red, Black, Blue and order is always the same on our motors to keep installation process simple and constant. Also those motors are specially made for ArduCopters and they have special winding inside to make them more efficient than other similar looking motors (we are using commonly used motor bells and housings but inside is different)
4) Prop adapters that are on out motors, yes they need to be tighten properly but I would not say that you need to use any excessive force for it. We here at jDrones are testing hundreds or those and using small screwdriver or hex too to secure them by hand.
5) GPS cables that we are shipping is always long enough to mount GPS properly on dome center so I wonder from where you have been ordering your kits?
All kits shipped out from us have magnetometers, motors, 5 + 10cm cables for GPS/Magnetomteter, esc's with bullets in bags, motors with bullets in bags. Motors/ESCs are easy to recognize due they have jDrones text on stickers. This way we can ensure that you have genuine ArduCopter
As Chris already said, Please keep comments coming so we can improve the quality of this great product that we are working hard so everyone can enjouy flying them.
Wessie,
Thanks for the feedback, but just one point of clarification: I don't have anything to do with the manufacturing or design of those kits. They're made by Jdrones (including the ones resold by DIY Drones), so you should pass that feedback on the Jani, who is runs that. (I'm just a customer, like you.) I do agree on the GPS cable, however. I'm surprised to hear that they're the short ones: my kits came with the longer one.
The one thing I do have something to do with is the APM kit, so I can comment on that. The reason the magnetometer is not part of the stock kit is that it's not required for airplanes (which is about half of the APM use) and we didn't want to force people to pay an extra $40 for something they don't need.
Please keep the feedback coming!