I was pilfering through ebay for some good deals on camera gimbals and I stumbled upon a store called gadgetinfinite. They are selling several 3DR clones on their site. I also noticed another one called game-jmt that is selling 3DR radios. It seems there is an endless cycle of clones coming from China with no end in site. Even though 3DR hardware is open sourced they are intent on selling this hardware using the 3DR name, trying to pass it off as original, but I highly doubt it is.
I have read several debates about the pros and cons about Chinese companies cloning U.S. merchandise. Personally I don't see any pros. Most of these rogue companies are only cloning to profit and not innovate. Will there ever be any way to regulate this? Should it? It makes it awfully discouraging for anyone wanting to bring an innovative product to market knowing that there is little they can do to keep foreign companies from cloning their ideas.
Comments
the new apm 2.5 has no gps anymore.
the 3m pilot sells with gps and sonar for $120.
the price difference is growing.
David: Which cloned products are 25% of 3D costs? (Or even 50%?). The one in this post is 66% of the 3DR cost, and doesn't include two necessary cables that come in the 3DR kit. Add the cables, and you're talking 75-80% of the 3DR cost.
As part of the Open Source Hardware community, we have a commitment to keeping prices low (we don't charge for intellectual property), which makes it hard for cloners to get as much price advantage as they would against closed source products (such as Spektrum or Futaba receivers).
It wouldn't be about 10$ @Robert Lefebvre. It would be an item at between 25%-50% of current costs. If the costs are very close people won't transition over to the the cheaper product, so they have to offer a very significant cost saving.
You currently have this exact same situation developing with the "orange" receivers from hobbyking and the spektrum receivers. The receiver I wanted was about 15$ from hobbyking, whereas it was over 89.99$ from eflite. I got the genuine product for 35$ on ebay, but honestly there is a huge amount of pork in some of these companies if China can sell it profitably at 15$. You also see these "orange" receivers all over craft on DIY drones, so it's not as if the majority of us are above doing this.
The main question is are DIY drones products only for wealthy people ?
I agree, I'm a big fan of budget conscious choices, and I don't follow the theory that "you get what you pay for". I have plenty of expensive, crappy things that I've bought over the years.
But in this case, the 3DR stuff seems VERY fairly priced. Personally, I would prefer to support them, those creating the items, charging a fair price, and manufacturing in North America. I just don't get it, ordering from some unknown place with NO support, to save $10? Same deal with the "APM2" on GLB. It's like $50 cheaper, but doesn't come with a GPS so it's not cheaper at all?
It is foolish to believe that only expensive things can be any good.
I agree, I just don't get the logic that you can create drones out of the cheapest components possible. Its an aircraft after all, it goes against all the logic of aircraft engineering, which requires multiple redundancy.
It worries me that someone will have to get hurt before people see the foolishness of making dirt cheap aircraft.
What incentive is there for the originator to develop or improve a product when you jump at saving $ 10 at sites that did not do the R&D, pay lower labour costs, provide no support whatsoever, and (probably) use lower quality parts?
@Hans: "... if the copy fails he'll go with the real product next time :p."
I hope there is a next time. What damage, collateral and airframe,etc., are you willing to risk?
Give your head a shake people, the ebay items save you, what, 10 bucks?
Personally, I'll stick with the originals!
You also have to accept that folks in China and Europe, where DIY drones gear is prohibitively expensive, may want to take a crack and making something for themselves. Some of the stuff they practically string together in china is very impressive. The real question is how long can DIY drones charge price before the competition kicks in. You get that golden period when you've developed something then its gone in a flash.
From what I heard the hobbking generic heli co-pilot device at about 70$ has its code directly ripped off from the german helicommand devices, which are in the 400$ range. As I understand the hobbyking knockoff doesn't have properly calibrated optical sensor and is harder to setup, but it's not half bad.
There is a certain "tipping point" though that if China can sell them at 1/2 to 1/4 the cost people are going to flock to them in droves. At least though the fact that it is a high ticket item 400$ it probably can't go below 100$.
Rockwell software with Allen Bradley many years ago developed a fieldbus protocol called DeviceNet.
It became open source for a great reason.
Many manufacturers could hook up a developed device to its connection protocol and share with other protocols through integration. Also the flexibility of using less wires and power distribution improves node portability.
Open sourcing has it's advantages being shared.
It also involves the survival of the fittest. If a device is buggy it is kicked out by consumers.
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
-
6
of 6 Next