No products in the cart.
Update 27/11/2017
DEAR TANKCOPTER FANS
Firstly, my apologies for a long time since the last update.
The reason was simple when there is money involved there is a problem ?. We spend over 4 weeks just negotiating the tooling agreement with the factory, the whole process took much longer than initially estimated. We had to make corrections then send the document to the lawyers for review and back to the factory, (5 times) before we found common ground.
Ahead of us is the manufacturing contract, but that has only one paragraph that worries us, the 4000 MOQ, from which we are far away ☹ in terms of pre-orders. But there is also the positive information; the factory will fulfil the current order at slightly higher price, so there is no reason to worry about yours pre-orders.
As you can see in the graphic above, there is a quite a lot of components to produce, in order to make this relatively simple idea alive. We went through them all very carefully, as we have limited funds, therefore, we need to get tooling right at the first time.
We finally received the Production TimeLine Plan from the manufacturer which looks as follow:
1. Tooling – 35 days (We will start the tooling from next Monday)
2. Engineering phase – 16 days
3. FEP(Final Engineering Pilot ) – 12 days
4. PP(Pre-production) 14 days – that is the moment when we will start shipping your orders
5. PS(Production start)
Seeing that time-consuming process ( agreement negotiations). We decided to have a look at recently released 8.5x23mm motors, we took them on the test bench to see if there are any better from the currently used (8.5x20mm). The result was as expected, the thrust was slightly increased so we decided to implement them (small change in CAD). It is a little upgrade but always a score.
As the project takes more time to complete than initially estimated, we fully understand that some of you cannot wait any longer. Please have in mind that you can withdraw your order and receive full refund at any requested time, in that matter please contact us at [email protected]
Thank you for being with us 🙂
8 Comments
The price for all who pre-ordered will be lower, as the compensation for all the waiting time involved. By how much we do not know yet, as we need to hit certain MOQ and get final price confirmation from the factory. So once we get confirmation from the factory, we either refund part of your pre-order value or exchange it for the CarCopter discount.
Will the price be higher than the pre-order price once it is released?
Have you started Pre-Production yet? It’s about time for a status update.
Mark
Yes, we started the tolling phase, 20 days ago. So the model is being made 🙂 . Now is the Chinese New Year, therefore the factory is closed for next 16 days.
Anyway I will prepare a more detailed update for Monday.
Thanks for your updates .
I will be patiently waiting for the finished product and wish you the best in making it happen.
Never give up ..!
Regards Tony
Thank you, Tony
I am doing my best, it is hard to start with no funds, but finally, there is a light in the tunnel and all seems to be going in the right direction recently.
Hi,
first I (mostly) like what you are doing, the ideas, the planing, design, construction, the new exploded assembly drawing is really, really great! You also included some great “updates” like better trust and removable tracks, so good work for the basic things.
Unfortunately I have some problems with the new technical design of the model, while I supported the former model, I’m not sure if I will do this for the new one again.
The first one is, that you replaced the dedicated analog 5.8 GHz video-transfer by a wifi 2.4 Ghz one, that may interfere the remote control, running at 2.4 GHz too.
I don’t have an iOS/Android phone I could use as display, nor would I use my phone for this, if I had one – I would have to use an unknown App with unknown security and probably extensive access to my mobile phone (I expect, that it is an OEM-version, that comes from the manufacturer for the wifi controller).
Second, while it was possible to replace the remote control of the old model with some “do it yourself”, I assume, that this will be impossible with the new model?
Finally the price now is at 200 USD (plus taxes), while the old one was 90 (no video) to 160 USD (video and fpv, including an extra display), the “VR Glasses” are no extra value, you still need a smartphone as display, using them in Germany without a second person as “spotter” is even not allowed.
Maybe you could make a package without them, for people who do not need them, but I don’t expect a relevant lower price for this, because it’s just some “cheap” plastic.
This are my very personal thoughts and the reason, why I have not ordered yet a model, I was waiting so long time for – not sure if I will change my mind in near future.
See here the old design:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/b-unstoppable-world-s-first-tankcopter-drone-gadget-technology
PS: Do you have a source where to get the 5.8 GHz fpv, you intended to use for the first model?
PPS: Any thoughts about spare parts for the B-EX, so that I get this “back on wheels” too?
Thank you for the comment.
Regarding 2.4 GHz, yes there are few changes in the design, that comes from the factory I am working with, they seem to have nice quality products. So they implemented their own camera and flight control, the camera runs on Wi-Fi and the remote control on 2.4 GHz.
The Smartphone app needs to be credited by Google Store or iOS, so security-wise is like any other app you find in Google Store.
The 200 USD price includes all the Taxes, so you will not spend any extra on it. Also, this is the price for very low order, according to the current pre-orders volume, if we managed to place order of 1000 – 4000 units, the price would drop to 160-140 USD ( including 23% VAT and all other taxes)
The camera I intended to use, was from one of the Chinese manufacturers, they are called Shenzhen Joyhonest Technology