Cockpitforyou, Opencockpits no support from both

[mariodantas]

Hi fellows, this is a little story for all of you.

A friend of mine bought a Cockpitforyou GOLD throttle a feu monts ago and now after many hous of usage the throttle is unusable, the throttle levers 1 and 2 move as they were free of motors, it seems like the motors sprokets are in plastic and they loose the theets, so we have notify or ask Torsten (owner of Cockpitforyou) for support since december 2016, more that 10 emails later, no response from the guy. So in my humble point of view you must be careful with this guy as it seems that no more support is available from his site or his email, I've tried to call with no success. SO BE CAREFUL

Another funny history this time with Opencockpits, I bought an ACP USB module for my pedestal a few months ago, last week I did a clean up inside the pedestal as it isn't finished yet I found some dust inside, when I unplugged the usb cable from the ACP module, the usb socket comes down with the cable, the USB socket was only welded by the 4 pins to the ACP board but not fixed (with the solid side pins used to fix the socket), so I tried to contact Opencockpits to show the problem and ask for a solution. Ok another disapeared people, I feel like a stupid one in the world of simulation spending money in trash, or anyway spending with non professionnal people who wants only to feed their fu...ing pockets with no mercy concerning their customers.

Be careful friends, in this world of simulation you'll find too many thras peaople in your way.


Disappointed with Cockpitforyou and Opencockpits, cheap throttles, cheap and bad quality modules and no support

Cheers

Mario DANTAS

France

[Trevor Hale]

Hi Mario.


This indeed is a problem with this hobby.  There are more people trying to offer products that just don't make the cut. Some companies will make something cheap and sell for a high margin. Unfortunately it makes all of us more cautious in our quest for the perfect vendor. Keep in mind though there are also reputable companies that have product failures once in a while. You just can't put them into the same category. I just hope you can get your issues solved. Keep trying to contact the vendor and let us know how you make out.

[tennyson]

Well,
I can tell you the opposite story.

I bought the same Gold throttle and have had my share of teething troubles.

Torsen, who's native tongue is German, is always on the ProSim forum and regularly helps out people with problems there.

He has always answered my emails and has given me superior service. I have no complaints.

He, like most small manufacturers, are stretched to the limit, supplying quality parts at minimum price and then spending an enormous amount of time with after-sales service.

His products are well made and certainly good value for money.

When you consider the myriad of problems that can and do exist within our hobby, after sales must take up an enormous amount of time.

I'm not saying this in your case, mate, but sometimes damage and incorrect set-up is the customers fault and it's really easy to sit on the sidelines bashing manufacturers all day.

I hope that you get your problems sorted, he's a good, honest bloke, as I've found from my dealings with him, so check out the ProSim forum and good luck.


Frank

[mariodantas]

Yes of course every one of us may have a different story to tell, maybe a good one or a bad one as in my own case.

In the opencockpits cas I mean is there any difficulty to fix the usb socked to the PCB board using the side fixers ?, I must tell you that after that I removed 1 by 1 all usb modules from my pedestal and ALL OF THEM have the same problem, the USB-B sockets are only fixed by their own 4 pins, that's a very bad practice, I bet that you can't plug / unplug your cable more than 10 times without detach the socket, I'm very sorry but I can't qualify that as quality items.

In the cockpitforyou case, Torsten have a support email and also a phone number, why searching Torsten in the forums ?, when we're about to decode to buy  TQ, Torsten answers our mails in a 30 minute basis, now that we have issues and want to know more about how to resolve it (even if it must be done by ourselves) Torsten doesn't exist anymore.

So in fact any one of us can tell a different story.

For the OC modules (those damages) I bought USB-B sockets from conrad and will replace them all, will drill little side holes to weld the fixers and get a solidd well fixed socket.

For Cockpitforyou I don't care abour warranty and will open the TQ, check for damaged gears (i'm almost sure that the problem is the lever gears) and replace it with steel ones or aluminium ones.

In the future I'll buy from flybycockpits (as I was in their installations a few days ago and saw by myself the sturdy quality of their products), CPFlight as the products perform well, now with ethernet support, or simworld with theyr simbox allowing you to swap USB port without loosing configuration. No more cheapers in the market for me.

[roarkr]

My experience with Opencockpits products is VERY good and their SIOC software is very well suited for flightsiming. In my view they deliver very good quality to a very competitive price.



roarkr

[Mach7]

I think with Open Cockpits you are dealing with a bit of a language issue. I have had trouble with support, but find there product very good quality.

[edkap]

A BIT of a language problem??  LOL!!  When I read their manual it is like I am reading some unknown language.  Some sentences are so convoluted and difficult to understand that I think I'm reading Martian.  You would think they would take the care to have someone who really can write in English do the translation for them.

[blueskydriver]

Hi Ed,

Welcome to Cockpit Builders! May I suggest you do an introduction post, so others can see what you're doing and help you. Plus, OpenCockpits has been around for many years and there are a lot of builders who've learned to understand "Martian" as you say, so they could help you out...and don't worry, you will learn to understand OC with due time.

Again, welcome to the CB site!

John

[FredK]

I have been using the OC Motors Plus card and SiOC for my home converted TQ for over 4 years now.  All works fine. The hardware works flawlessly.

There is definitely a learning curve involved with SIOC though.  I agree that the manual is done very poorly.  The best approach is to scan through to get a general sense of things, but then quickly move on to exploring some trial and error coding.  You will quickly find that the programming aspect is highly intuitive and even fun to use.  User practice is the only way to learn SIOC!

Fred K