So, I emailed Air K motors, a French firm that sells the direct copy of Rotax engines...

[APenNameAndThatA]

And this is the convo.

 

Hello
are you working for rotax?
if not , do you like this monopoly , since 30 years ?
don't you like a good competition?
, in order to get some better engines , with lower price??
Le 14/05/2022 à 04:24, Andrew Nielsen a écrit :

You are scum.

 

To clarify. Air K is retailing the motors which are made in China. 

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by APenNameAndThatA

[kgwilson]

What did you say in your email to get that response?

[Kyle Communications]

Obviously he wrote something that pissed the guy off 

 

No use having a whinge here ..always better to attract flies with honey

 

 

[onetrack]

The Lotax is only as good as the record of the Chinese for producing high quality products of a consistent standard. They fail on at least one of the requirements, every time. There are no "Gold Standard" Chinese manufactured products.

 

The resale value of Chinese manufactured goods, once they are used, reflects their true value in the overall marketplace. The only manufactured products produced in China with any degree of reliability are from Western-company owned premises with Westerners overseeing the QC and placing suppliers under constant intense scrutiny.

 

The Chinese lie constantly about rated outputs, will cheat on the specifications for metals, alloys, and other crucial inputs, their managers are easily bribed and corrupted to substitute sub-standard components and parts, and their understanding of "service and parts availability" is so far behind Western requirements, you are effectively running an "orphan" once you buy Chinese. Add in servicing and parts literature that is littered with Chinglish, and the potential for disaster in the air looms large.

 

You're probably happy with your aftermarket, and even original, vehicle parts that are made in China - as they have been for around 25 years in a number of cases.

But the difference with your Chinese piston failing in your Beemer, is that you don't have to plan an emergency landing with the Beemer - as compared to a Lotax giving you an EFATO in your aircraft.

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by onetrack

[Thruster88]

The price is about 75% of the genuine engine so not much of a saving, the hit on resale value of an aircraft with non genuine engine would be substantial. Used rotax engines are good value for buyers on a budget who are doing low hours per year.  

[FlyBoy1960]

8 hours ago, onetrack said:

There are no "Gold Standard" Chinese manufactured products.

 

in China you get what you pay for, if you pay the lowest possible price you will get the lowest possible quality if you pay a fair and reasonable price you can get best in world products. There are dozens and dozens of examples but something like an iPhone is a good example, they are not cheap Chinese products.

 

If you pay the right price in China you can get anything you want to the highest possible standard of manufacture, quality and reliability

[Kyle Communications]

Flyboy is correct. You get what you pay for in China.

 

I work for a australian manufacturer and we make our product here. We source our parts from many places around the world. All of our cell material comes from the USA as it is the best..there is chinese stuff but we donr use it. The base titanium the americans use to make their product comes from China though. The titanium is is good and no issues..the coatings that are heated onto it is done by the USA company. Our electronics are made by by a chinese company and we can get them made eslewhere in China for a cheaper price but we use a company that actually manufactures LCD displays..they also do complete component sourcing and assembly . They only use genuine parts supplyers not dodgy ones although twice now they have had some issues with counterfiet parts. The electronics company there have been devastated that this happened and have taken measure of sacking their suppliers that did this.

Our failure rate on our product is less than 0.5%...our competitors have a average failure rate of 40% or more. This is why you get what you pay for. Yes you can get very good equipment from China if you know what you are doing and are prepared to pay the money. This is why Iphones etc are a lot more expensive than the others.

As far as the copy Rotax goes well the jury is out as I know there are quite a few out there operating now but I havent heard anything bad yet about them at all but of course longevity of the product is yet to be seen.

 

 

[kgwilson]

How many manufactured electronics etc do you buy that are not made in China or have Chinese made components? The answer is very few. The big names like Apple, LG & Samsung all have Chinese components but the quality control of these is managed to a very high standard. The Chinese are leading the world in new battery technology production with CATL & BYD.  BYD will be selling sub 45k BEVs in Australia from July. I'd like to see how the quality of these pans out.

[Kyle Communications]

I spend half of my time at work currently trying to source particular components now. Some are literally unobtainium now...lead times are anywhere from 12 month to 18 months delivery. The majority of our electronic components are infact made in China or Asia. We use Microchip processors and also some other Microchip parts like RTC (real time clock) chips. These are actually made in a Microchip plant in Thailand. The chinese have difficulty getting them now so we organise these chips and get them freighted here to us then we send them on to our manufacturer in China. Most of the passive components are Yageo or kemet which are high quality passives but also made either in China or Thailand by those major companies. There are quite a few chips like regulators and hall effects transducers and capacitive touch and temperature sensors we are using now that are chinese made in chinese factories because we have not been able to source the originals we were using due to the world wide chip shortages. These Chinese made versions are excellent and working perfectly....to give you a example we used previously a Texas Instruments temperature sensor but we went to the chinese version and the failure rate is actually better than the TI version by about 70%  The failure rate is super small anyway like only 5 chips in 30,000 which is very good in the time frame.

Our heatsinks are all made in China as no one in australia does metal injecting anymore...the company we use for that is also excellent we use 15,000 a year plus and maybe 10 out of those maybe rejected. Transformers we used to make ourselves here but now we use a chinese company who makes them to our design parameters...for less than half the price we can make them for..we had to go through 3 manufacturers to find one that made them to a high standard every time..that company is also excellent.

 

So the argument that all chinese manufactured stuff is crap is just not true at all...we do pay a bit more for this quality but it is certainly there and repeatable. We make and sell the most popular unit in the country and sales just keep increasing literally every day and more companies are getting out unit..we rebadge the same unit for 7 different companies.

 

The only way to know if this copy rotax is any good will be time and numbers. Until then no one will know

 

[pmccarthy]

I know a caravan manufacturer ships Aussie steel to China where the chassis is assembled and shipped back to Aussie. They don't trust Chinese steel but the assembly and welding work is fine.

[spacesailor]

Wasn't, it Keeting that ruined that ' caravan industry ' in Australia. 

 Now nearly all are made in China .

spacesailor

[tillmanr]

Jayco are a massive concern at Dandenong producing caravans. Maybe not Rolls Royces but selling like hotcakes. The dominant seller/producer in Australia. The trailer market seems to be largely Chinese but not caravan from what I can see,

[Kyle Communications]

Keating ruined a lot of stuff but not the caravan industry..trailers yes..caravans no...up here near me there are literally 20 caravan makers and they are all booked out for like more than a year with sales

 

[Kyle Communications]

hahah tillman  both posted at the same time

 

[IBob]

Putting aside, for the moment, questions of quality and quality assurance.
And as one who has done a bit of reverse engineering in my time:

 

A major problem with reverse engineering (copying someone else's design) is that however accurately you copy, you do not get the thinking behind the design and refinement of the original. Or as an engineer I did a lot of work for liked to say: you only get what you can see.

 

So it can be hard to judge what are the critical parts of the design.

 

Which is how we end up with stuff like this:

[Kyle Communications]

You are spot on Bob...I have had a couple of companies try to "copy" my designs...Well exactly as you say because they dont understand the theory behind the design or the selection of parts and placement they come up with something that sort of works but doesnt. The theory in my designs requires a lot of AC switching theory and transformer conduction and quite a bit of special ancillory component design. In this industry they all seem to copy and just perpetuate all the mistakes. No one yet has mangaged to actually even get close. No one can seem to innovate they all copy all their own mistakes..no one seems to have ever started with a clean sheet like I did. The design has been evolving over the past 7 years but it did take around a year of development to get it right

[bushcaddy105]

Your comments are (as always) very interesting, Mark. May I ask what is the product you are producing? 

[FlyBoy1960]

I was wondering this also, It cant be throttle links for Rotax

[Kyle Communications]

Replacement CDI for Rotax..new throttle system for Rotax, modified flap brackets for Savannahs....hahahah oh thats my spare time.  We manufacture a Salt Water pool chlorinator. Well a couple of differnet models because we are a OEM we rebadge the unit for 7 different companies and of course have our own brand...all the big companies use our unit now as we have the best quality and warranty. Our failure rate is under 0.5% most others are between 30 and 40%..this is why all the big companies now use ours

We make them out at Woodford about 25km N/W of Caboolture and employ 13 people. We also use the maximum amount of locally made products we can. For exmple today we just had 15km of the cable we use to attach the cell it is a multicore cable with 2 of 6mm main DC cable and 4 of 1.5mm cables. It is all made in Victoria. All our plastics are injection molded up at the sunshine coast. Connectors are all sourced from local suppliers.

We only buy in from another country what we can not get done here at a reasonable price. Sometimes its actually a bit more expensive here but we use the local supplyer

 

 

Sorry its a bit off topic

 

 

 

[turboplanner]

.

Edited May 18, 2022 by turboplanner

[Blueadventures]

1 hour ago, Kyle Communications said:

Replacement CDI for Rotax..new throttle system for Rotax, modified flap brackets for Savannahs....hahahah oh thats my spare time.  We manufacture a Salt Water pool chlorinator. Well a couple of differnet models because we are a OEM we rebadge the unit for 7 different companies and of course have our own brand...all the big companies use our unit now as we have the best quality and warranty. Our failure rate is under 0.5% most others are between 30 and 40%..this is why all the big companies now use ours

We make them out at Woodford about 25km N/W of Caboolture and employ 13 people. We also use the maximum amount of locally made products we can. For exmple today we just had 15km of the cable we use to attach the cell it is a multicore cable with 2 of 6mm main DC cable and 4 of 1.5mm cables. It is all made in Victoria. All our plastics are injection molded up at the sunshine coast. Connectors are all sourced from local suppliers.

We only buy in from another country what we can not get done here at a reasonable price. Sometimes its actually a bit more expensive here but we use the local supplyer

 

 

Sorry its a bit off topic

 

 

 

Mark and others I fitted one of the units about a month ago and totally impressed with the product; very impressed with the s/s 'r' clips that prevent it being knocked off the mount hooks, the cover over the control panel to protect against the environment, etc.  Double thumbs up to the unit and is practical extras and also the packaging that it was shipped in.  Cheers.

[bushcaddy105]

Thanks, Mark 

A great Australian Made success story. We can manufacture top-class stuff in Australia, as used to be the case. We just need some forward thinking leaders at the top of government. Oh dear, I think I've just found the problem holding us back.

[Kyle Communications]

John.  dont start me on that subject.....I want to hit the TV or smash the radio whenever the bullsh#t flows with the pollies

 

[planedriver]

The BS seems to always start with the on/off button.

 

[planedriver]

The above posts mentioning guality remind me of a sign I had on my office wall some years back, it stated......................

 

QUALITY IS AKIN TO BUYING OATS.

 

If you wish to purchase good quality clean oats, then you have to pay a fair price.

However, if you are prepared to accent oats that have already passed through the horse, they come a little cheaper.