Next Gen Gone?
- Thread starter DennyR
- Start date
Redhotpearl
Member
What does that mean? He's MIA? On the Lamb? In Hiding? That really sucks for everyone, I guess I'm not getting anymore technical assistance....not that I got any in a while. I'll go to my grave saying the guy makes one fine craft though.
Droider
Drone Enthusiast
Surprise surprise... he may have built a good craft but to walk away leaving people hundreds or thousands of pounds worse of is despicable.. his web site is still up, I cannot understand why trading standards have not shut it down, or why his bank is still accepting funds.. Its been long enough now it should be shut down.
Redhotpearl
Member
I agree it's B.S..
Redhotpearl
Member
I do agree but I wouldn't think twice about contacting him personally. Would I get a response? That's a different story. I would love to have him build us a Heavy lift hexa or Okto2, we've already talked about it in the past. I would obviously need some assurances if my company were ever to deal with him again, especially for that kind of money. I most def. want to build my next ship though and know I can do it but I know the craftsmanship wouldn't be as good as his work at least on my 1st try. Again though I would have a very hard time trusting him. When we bought ours over a year ago there was only like 2 companies building RTF's like we were looking for. We have been happy with it other than the camera mount sitiuation and we all know how that goes.
We were not ripped off by him but if anyone else was that is BS and you shouldn't deal with him. I'm just torn because I like the guy and hope there's nothing seriously wrong with him. If he's just shirking his business and ripping people off then he deserves what he gets.
Eric
We were not ripped off by him but if anyone else was that is BS and you shouldn't deal with him. I'm just torn because I like the guy and hope there's nothing seriously wrong with him. If he's just shirking his business and ripping people off then he deserves what he gets.
Eric
Redhotpearl
Member
Yeah that's gonna be the route we are probably gonna take. We've already spoken, my partners and I, about buying another craft. Most likely an Okto2. I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron it's just scary to me as I don't have any experience with circuit boards. The ARF route as you said is my best bet I guess. We have a T2I that we still need to get in the air but I won't strap it under the Hexa, just too much weight, to much to go wrong. We are looking into getting another Camcorder as well but that's a little ways off probably. We have talked about needing a larger bird just not sure when we're going to be ready to do it. If things turn as I'm hearing they should then we could be in a better position soon...but who knows haven't made a dime really yet. Not to pay off the investment.
BTW Still using the alternative battery mounts that you gave me and still think they help. Thanks again. I should be getting the MD1 CF baseplate in a day or so I'm interested to see what kind of results I get with that and theMKTR. I'm hoping to spread out the contact points between the MKTR and the hexa. Right now I get hardly any vibration I just get shaking. I'm hoping the baseplate will stiffen it up. I might even try a hybrid design but I'll see if it will work when it gets here.
How much would you like an Octo2 he built? I could sell you my one he built, you just need lots of velcro, rewire it, replace the boards and get a new camera gimbal that actually works. If you do find him and he builds one for you no doubt he will turn up late and still be soldering bits in the back of his car an hour later and promising to send on the bits he forgot. Then when you want to make a small claims court claim because it's "not fit for the purpose", you find he has done a runner. I liked the guy also, I assumed as he was the Microkopter contact he new what he was doing. He is so unprofessional in every way I can't believe I was stupid enough to believe in his building qualities. I blame myself for the box of scrap I now own, it was obvious looking back he was a disaster area. What really *isses me off is, not the trip in the helicopter I took him on, not the meal in McD's I bought while he finished the build in the car park, it's not that I insisted he charge me time for a repair when was hardly charging for the bits on, not even the weeks over due completion, it's the being ignored that gets me angry. I started off just wanting him to comment on the crash, now if he has any pennies left I want the very last one. He got in way beyond his capabilities, he is not deliberately dishonest or out to rip people off he just is so hopeless at being professional it had to happen. He could not make the distinction between building something for fun to fly around a field and building a professional tool with a professional service to back it up. The work, phone calls, paperwork, orders, etc got to much to handle so nothing got done properly in the end, that's how I see it. A decent chap that dug himself a large hole, jumped in and kept digging.
Alex give me a call, it could save you a lot of heartache and more problems.
Kevin.
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Bart,
All a bit sad really, if you met him you liked him and if I am honest I still do like him. He has a young family you can't help but feel sorry for, not one of the Worlds bad people by any stretch of the imagination. I would think he is in a very unhappy place right now with few options. It would be much better for him to face the problems and start a fresh instead of trying to hide and dragging everything out. I genuinely hope he comes out OK. He has a lot of knowledge and ability but no guiding hand to keep him on track and make sure all the boxes get ticked. I've had a very expensive time with dealing with him, as I have said I don't think he set out to be bad, he set out with a dream that has turned bad, I think he would rather be kind and honest to people than to take their money and run. I could be wrong but having honest intentions that go bad would be harder to deal with than being plain dishonest. Alex naturally is not a cheat or rip off merchant.
Kevin.
All a bit sad really, if you met him you liked him and if I am honest I still do like him. He has a young family you can't help but feel sorry for, not one of the Worlds bad people by any stretch of the imagination. I would think he is in a very unhappy place right now with few options. It would be much better for him to face the problems and start a fresh instead of trying to hide and dragging everything out. I genuinely hope he comes out OK. He has a lot of knowledge and ability but no guiding hand to keep him on track and make sure all the boxes get ticked. I've had a very expensive time with dealing with him, as I have said I don't think he set out to be bad, he set out with a dream that has turned bad, I think he would rather be kind and honest to people than to take their money and run. I could be wrong but having honest intentions that go bad would be harder to deal with than being plain dishonest. Alex naturally is not a cheat or rip off merchant.
Kevin.
Redhotpearl
Member
I can't really speak to that personally as my experiences w/ him weren't that bad but that sucks it happened 2 you, sorry to hear it. I completely understand your frustration and would be livid if it were me. He was definitely not the most professional person and he did try to leave us in a lurch once or twice but always made it right. My hexa as I've said is a thing of beauty, so clean and have never had an issue. Its a work horse. Our delivery was delayed several times but that's because he said he was swamped and we took him at his word. This was over a year ago now though, when did you order? There were 2 other people from the states that received mks from him all around the same time. They were both very happy with theirs so I don't know maybe we got him before he went off the deep end.
On the subject of your okto2, I'd love to buy it and could talk to my partners but pretty sure its out of the budget now. We re hoping to make some good money soon with some upcoming jobs but we vre to pay off our hexa. It would not be smart on our part yet. Anyway sorry to hear about your issues with Alex. Its bs. Its not like there's a multitude of people to buy from and deal with in this field.
On the subject of your okto2, I'd love to buy it and could talk to my partners but pretty sure its out of the budget now. We re hoping to make some good money soon with some upcoming jobs but we vre to pay off our hexa. It would not be smart on our part yet. Anyway sorry to hear about your issues with Alex. Its bs. Its not like there's a multitude of people to buy from and deal with in this field.
Seriously you don't want to buy it, it's now scrap. Being a novice at this I tended to think all the problems were me. I also had a suspicion about the Octo, it just did not look the part even to my untrained eye. Lengths of cable folded and velcro'ed to the machine instead of cut to length. Why he built the camera gimble when there are so many quality off the shelf options is beyond me, the arm to the self leveling servo became unglued very quickly. I all along said build to quality not to price. Everything was self tapped to the frame, no retaining nut anywhere. I am no engineer but when this was pointed out to me I bought some self locking nuts. No way screws self tapped into soft alloy are not going to vibrate loose at sometime. I was literally going to take it to someone on the Saturday to strip and rebuild when flying it in my garden on the Friday afternoon all eight motors stopped. Hence I have a pile of scrap that did not earn me a penny, despite having a few £k worth of jobs offered, I turned them down because I did not trust the machine and it did not look the part. I do not want to turn up looking like the pantomime horse.
If Alex has built you one I would take very close look at it, are you trusting your reputation to a few short screws self tapped into the frame? I had a 550D depending on four short self tapped screws into soft aluminium. There was lots of other niggling little faults that pointed to rushed building rather than doing it right.
All in all it did not inspire confidence, I am so pleased I did not take on the jobs I was offered, it would of been so easy to jump in and start to look for a quick return on my money. Seriously take a look at the soldered joints, are any of them being used for supporting the boards? Have the electronics been mounted the best way? So much was pointed out to me after the big crash and like they said "I am surprised it has not crashed before"
Safe flying,
Kevin.
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Redhotpearl
Member
I'm sorry to hear all that Kevin but honestly I have had the exact opposite experience than you. My hexa is a thing of beauty. I've said it before and I ll say it again, it looks like a machine made it. The wires are all perfect length, inside the arms, not on outside. They're only visible where they meet the motor and its very clean. The boards are on the spacers just as they should be and the soldering like I said looks like a machine did it. More importantly I utterly trust the thing in the air. Its got dozens of hours in the air in a hundred plus flights. I really don't know what else to say other than I'd be flying to England to meet w/ Mr. Wilder if I had the experience you described. The other 2 guys who bought at the time I did were happy w/ the quality also. I don't know man, I can promise you my hexa doesn't look like that I fly it all the time and its great so... I ll post some pics when I get home.
Droider
Drone Enthusiast
It just sounds that his bubble has burst. I am the first to appreciate craftmnaship but have seen this before when people get in over there depth and cannot handle the problems technologies like this inevitably bring. RHP you seen to have been a lucky one and got your hexa at a time he was in good shape.
I do feel for him if he is a generally good guy as I can understand his problems when more thing start to go wrong than right. Just wish he would shut his site down and close his bank account from excepting payments.
Think its time to move on with this one ..
Dave
I do feel for him if he is a generally good guy as I can understand his problems when more thing start to go wrong than right. Just wish he would shut his site down and close his bank account from excepting payments.
Think its time to move on with this one ..
Dave
Redhotpearl
Member
Let me say again that I have no horse in this race. I think it's crap if he's ripping people off, I just did not have that experience. It wasn't always easy dealing with him because he wasn't all that reliable but things always got done eventually. These are taken after I unpacked everything and laid it out on the worktable. The last was the maiden on 3/17/10. As you can see very clean worksmanship and I was very happy with the quality and still am. It still looks and flies great.
The mount situation that you experienced I don't understand either. That's very weird. When we bought he sold us the Patiro mount. It wasn't very good, the gear stripped, it was shakey, it was frustrating and limited. I don't however fault him for this because we all know how it goes with mounts. I've come to understand this now but we were not very happy with him for selling it to us. In your situation I would have been livid and freaked out.
Again sorry this happened to you and anyone else. A business should do what it's supposed to do and that's serve it's customers and not lie to them or rip them off. I don't have any excuses for the guy. I thought things with him went well for us though, how could we have known it would have went like this?
The mount situation that you experienced I don't understand either. That's very weird. When we bought he sold us the Patiro mount. It wasn't very good, the gear stripped, it was shakey, it was frustrating and limited. I don't however fault him for this because we all know how it goes with mounts. I've come to understand this now but we were not very happy with him for selling it to us. In your situation I would have been livid and freaked out.
Again sorry this happened to you and anyone else. A business should do what it's supposed to do and that's serve it's customers and not lie to them or rip them off. I don't have any excuses for the guy. I thought things with him went well for us though, how could we have known it would have went like this?
