Castle looking ESC coming to hobbyking

[MonsterMaxx]

OMG, you guys act all surprised when a Chinese company rips off American engineering. It's been going on for decades.

Castle can whip up their lawyers and spend a bunch of money. Might even be worth it to stop them with the ITC (US customs, can stop it at the border, but no civil claims.) They will not get a penny out of HobbyKing, HobbyCity or whatever they have changed their name too now to duck legal matters.

Deans stopped them, got to hand it to them for that, but I have to wonder how much it raised the cost of Deans connectors to do so.

Fact is US/China trade relations are totally stacked against American companies and in favor of China. An American firm can NOT get money out of a Chinese company. But if a Chinese company sues an American company in China and wins (like that's a big surprise in Kangraoo Court) the US/China trade agreement says that that judgement is claimable against the American company.

How do I know this? Because I worked for an American company who went thru this very thing. They were a major supplier of equipment on the Three Gorges project. There were huge rewards for finishing the job early. Because of the company I worked for the TGP was finished nearly 5 years ahead of schedule. Huge rewards. So China manufactured an accident, sued in Chinese court, won of course and came over here and basically foreclosed on the American company. Forced them into bankruptcy just to keep China from taking the entire company, the owners home, cars, chickens and clothing (yes, all those items and more were on the Chinese notice.) Ridiculous.

As to Hobbyking, they have been ripping off other firms and their customers since they first started.

Good luck Castle, my bet is you are wasting your time and money. Though you might have the pockets ($50-100k) to go thru the ITC and stop them from coming into the US thru the hobbyking channel (they'll just go around it), you'll never get a penny from Hobbyking.

I remember looking thru Integy's product line a number of years back, nearly every product they had was a rip off. No one cared, peeps bought the cheep stuff.

Until the laws are changed, small American business are screwed. Then again, even Microsoft gets screwed by China rip offs. What can we do when the entire Chinese govt is against us and US politicians are in their pockets.

Doubt any one was really surprised. Some people were pretty peed off though.

Anyway Chinese economy is half based on illegal copying of other's products/ideas.

Also Hobbyking is back at selling Deans style connectors. Slightly tweaked but really the same thing. Doubt anyone will ever stop them. Hell they have even copied TRX and EC type connectors.

The fact they made a line of their ESC's look very similar to Castle ones I doubt it is going to fool many people that they are pretty much the same thing or of similar quality. Not in this day and age. And if some people think that they are getting pretty much the same thing they will probably regret it sooner rather than later.

I've heard good things about these ESCs though in E-Bikes. I'm considering buying one, the customer service might be better than Castles CS too.


- A customer who's already waiting for 2,5 months for his ESC to get repaired.

[MonsterMaxx]

LOL. I just remembered how I met Mike.

We were at a race in the northeast and he was parked near me.
Mike was all proud of his new RacerX looking blue suspension. Yes folks, Mike himself bought the cheep Chinese ripoff of Unlimited Engineering's well designed and unique RacerX suspension.
I took one look at it and said: "you'll bend it here, here and here". He laughed, didn't believe me and said something like "yea, but for the price I paid I could buy several for one of UE's".

Now remember, this is the same suspension that was such a knockoff of our RacerX that they actually used MY knuckles in their print advertising - yea, I know my own machining marks.

After the first qualifier Mike came back and said "Wow, you were right, it bent right here." He DNF'd by the way due to the failure of the Integy 'RacerX'

We laughed and struck op a conversation.

So you see fellas, even someone like Mike will buy the knockoff when it's cheep.

[MonsterMaxx]

Japan solved all this in their RC community decades ago.

What they did was form a consortium of manufacturers and retailers. You were either in the consortium or couldn't buy or sell to any of it's members.

There was some pretty easy review process where someone who had done the engineering on something could file with the consortium and they would very quickly resolve the copy issue and force the offender to stop or be on the out.

From what I understand, it worked very well and still does today.

[RC-Monster Mike]

Originally Posted by MonsterMaxx

LOL. I just remembered how I met Mike.

We were at a race in the northeast and he was parked near me.
Mike was all proud of his new RacerX looking blue suspension. Yes folks, Mike himself bought the cheep Chinese ripoff of Unlimited Engineering's well designed and unique RacerX suspension.
I took one look at it and said: "you'll bend it here, here and here". He laughed, didn't believe me and said something like "yea, but for the price I paid I could buy several for one of UE's".

Now remember, this is the same suspension that was such a knockoff of our RacerX that they actually used MY knuckles in their print advertising - yea, I know my own machining marks.

After the first qualifier Mike came back and said "Wow, you were right, it bent right here." He DNF'd by the way due to the failure of the Integy 'RacerX'

We laughed and struck op a conversation.

So you see fellas, even someone like Mike will buy the knockoff when it's cheep.

I remember this day as well - this was several years ago - pretty sure it was my first year in business, actually. I did dnf the 1st heat, but went on to win the EMaxx class this year - fortunately I also owned UE stuff. In my defense, price wasn't the only factor leading to the Integy purchase. I was also a new dealer for Integy at the time - this race was the first time I ever used the suspension in question, too. I have always been a "know what you sell" type of guy, so I had to put it through its paces. It was not UE quality for sure!
I didn't have my own parts at the time either, so I sold Integy, GorillaMaxx, RDLogics parts, in addition to brushless motors and ESCs. You approached me fairly aggressively spouting about buying US made stuff as you angrily tossed your SuperMaxx into a Toyota pickup(Ofna shocks and all) and I remember thinking about the irony as I tried to deflect the conversation. "How can you run this chinese crap!" were the first words you ever said to me! LOL.
Though we got off on the wrong foot early that day, we did develop a relationship from the experience that was fruitful for us both. I went on to become a UE dealer and sold UE parts for several years - shipping many orders overseas as you did not ship outside the US. I still own at least 2 Racer X suspensions, shocks, a lightning chassis, various pillow balls and misc. suspension components and many other UE parts on various trucks. I always admired the quality of UE parts and try to emulate this trait on my own line of parts. Trust me though, the day I found out my Slipperential was ripped off, this very experience was in my mind(racer x suspension wasn't patented, but situation is similar). If the maker of the clone was parked next to me as I was you that day, I may have been similarly aggressive. :)

[hemiblas]

I havent bought any of these controllers(and I refuse to for obviouse reasons), but I have bought several chinese controllers for my airplanes and they are hit and miss. Some will work, some will work well, and some give up the smoke on your first run. I decided to switch over to the ice series 50,75 and 100A controllers and they work much better, go up to 8S, and have a solid 5A BEC. The starting and stopping is much much smoother on the castle controllers, regardless of the motor you use and they wont heat up as much given the same load on a similar rated controller. When you look at the price of these and you compare them to the castle controller, they arent that much cheaper. Throw in shipping and you can save a few bucks, but its not worth it. For the guys that say you can buy two for the price of one, its not true, but in the end you will have to do that because you cant send them back when they smoke. I now own 7 ice controllers and cant be happier.

I either buy them from brand new from ebay, amazon, or tower (Mike doesnt sell them), but you can get some good prices when you factor in the free shipping or coupon offer.

[MonsterMaxx]

Yup, I can be a hot head. Been working on that...

Also, if I recall, that copy had just come out and I was boiling mad about it. Adding insult to injury they even used MY parts in their print ads. Now you understand first hand why I was so pissed.

But back to the point of bringing that up...fact is, in this Walmart Chinese Disposable society we have now people don't care as much about quality as they do price.

Screw engineering, ethics and quality. Make it look good on the shelf and cheaper than the competition and you'll sell. I can almost guarantee that Integy made more on that cheap knockoff crap than I ever did. Their entire freeking product line is nothing but ripoffs. Not one original idea in their entire lineup. And they sell the heck out of that stuff. Bling Bling, looks nice on the shelf and it's cheap (sorry, 'inexpensive'.)

This kind of thing still boils my blood. But what can you do other than give yourself ulcers?

Customers don't care, US govt doesn't care, retailers and etailers don't care, laws are not in our favor, and as a small business you have no recourse but to spend all your money fighting a battle you can't win.
Or accept the fact that the world ain't fair, suck it up and move on. If you can't stand it, find some other industry you can apply your talents too that's not as cutthroat (good luck finding that - everything I've tried so far is that way) Or give up entirely and work for someone else, let them have the headaches.

To be honest with you, this and the racing drama is what killed my interest in RC. I mean, why the f__k should I do the engineering for China? I have plenty of other interests where I am my own demographic, so make stuff for things I’m interested in – and make a thousand of them, then move onto the next thing.
Since that race (what 6-7 years ago?) I'll could count the number of times I've driven a RC car on one hand, probably on a hand that has had several fingers blown off. I’ve been thinking about getting back into RC cars now that I have such a nice home with a place I could build a track and a shop to work in, but I have nothing that runs anymore and just can’t seem to get motivated. All my friends have moved on to other interests.

Oh, and my helis and planes use original design items like Align, Kasama, Kontronic, Castle, Eagle Tree, Spektrum, JR, Futaba, etc.
Though I have to admit, I do use the HobbyKing batteries. Because they are so cheap it fits my maintenance style – which ain’t great. Batts last 20 or so cycles before I leave them charged too long, smash them into the ground, overdischarge (this is a biggie) or something else that would ruin any batt. I figure until we get telemetry I’m probably going to continue to ruin batts so why buy the expensive ones. It’s me that kills them, not the quality. So I guess I’m just as guilty as the rest of you.

I do NOT shop at Walmart.

[hemiblas]

The funny thing is all they did was copy the case on this one. The specs on the BEC are different and I'm sure it cant be programmed on your computer, and I'll bet its not as smooth as the Castle controller. This is an obvious attempt to trick someone into buying an inferior product at only a fraction of a discount. They are probably making lots of money on these controllers.

[gumleguf]

Originally Posted by MonsterMaxx

I’ve been thinking about getting back into RC cars now that I have such a nice home with a place I could build a track and a shop to work in, but I have nothing that runs anymore and just can’t seem to get motivated. All my friends have moved on to other interests.

Well, you have quite a huge following who would consider that great news (!) and as I've stated before there are still those of us who wants quality over quantity. Sure, everybody starts out with a bling-bling cheap chinese part but after 5 minutes of driving that many of us start looking for a quality part that can actually be driven and not just look good on the shelf. Not that Integy parts looks good compared to UE, but you get my point...

So, you have my vote for getting back into RC. Wuhuuuu!!!!