Turnigy 9x v2

[tommy]

Question for xjet.
When you ordered your Turnigy 9x V2 was it anonymous or not.
Otherwise you may get special treatment with reguards to delivery times and quality control
which may not be a fair test.

Thank you.

[RCModelReviews]

My name on the HK forums is RCModelReviews but the name I use for ordering product is *not* RCModelReviews

I don't think I got special treatment -- most of the people around here who regularly order stuff from HK get their products within a week. However, I see there are more horror-stories surfacing on the HK forums, it now seems that a few people are getting the wrong orders -- perhaps due to a relabeling stuff-up in Singapore.

[tommy]

Ok Thank you.
I am eagerly awaiting for your review on the Turnigy 9x V2.
Great website by the way. I have learnt alot from here.

[Toumal]

I guess I'll find out if xjet got special treatment since my order should be coming in next week, and I'll be sure to test the hell out of it!

Also, who else has a 9xV2? Are you happy with it?

[tommy]

I was going to order the 9x v2 but I have ordered other parts from HK over two weeks ago. After serveral emails to them I finally got a working tracking number just a couple of days ago. Still no parts though. Hence I held off on ordering the 9x v2. That's why I was wondering if xjet's order got special treatment.
The other thing that really appeals to me about the 9xv2 is being able to write custom code for it as I have seen on other sites.
Looks interesting.

[Toumal]

Yeah the project is at http://sourceforge.net/projects/radioclone/
Another one is here: http://code.google.com/p/th9x/

That's what made me buy this radio myself. Especially with the TH9x firmware you don't even need to do a hardware mod to change the low battery warning - it lets you set this limit in the config options right on the radio!

[RCModelReviews]

It's just a shame that most people are so intimidated by soldering wires and reprogramming their radio -- always aware that there's a small risk it could be turned into a brick if they stuff things up.

I'd like to see them add a boot-loader and USB connector to the 9X so that people can simply flash new firmware directly from their PCs. Then the Chinese could forget all about the hassles of trying to fix their buggy software and rely on others to do that for them. It'd boost sales immensely.

Unfortunately, FlySky are not known for actually listening to customers.

[T4RC]

The old version is giving me problems and i dont have a damn clue whats wrong 1000TH FORUM POST WOOO!

[Toumal]

I'd like to see them add a boot-loader and USB connector to the 9X so that people can simply flash new firmware directly from their PCs. Then the Chinese could forget all about the hassles of trying to fix their buggy software and rely on others to do that for them. It'd boost sales immensely.

Unfortunately, FlySky are not known for actually listening to customers.

They absolutely should. It's free software development for them! There's a lot of room for improvement and I could see myself contributing to those projects.

Heck, I personally know a guy who wrote his own custom firmware for the Graupner MC22, and believe me, it puts everything Graupner to shame. It's the most intuitive menu system I have seen on a transmitter yet. Graupner's response? Why, a cease and desist letter of course, despite it having been a clean room implementation! Customers improving their property? We can't have that, now can we? They should've just given the guy 10 grand or something like that, and buy out his software.

For a positive example of this, check out "JJ-OS" for the Akai MPC-1000. It's tolerated by Akai, and it turns an otherwise mediocre drummachine/sampler into a fully featured music production studio. Akai is not really endorsing it, but they're not going after it either. They realized that JJ-OS directly translates to additional sales for them.

[RCModelReviews]

I wonder if the Chinese are aware of just how much better they could do (from a sales and profit perspective) if they simply learned how to properly leverage their products by adopting Western-style quality control and marketing strategies.

Over the past few years I've spent a lot of time giving freely of my time and experience to Chinese companies in an attempt to help them raise their game. Some take notice, some ignore the help and rely on the fact that no matter how poor the quality, no matter how awful the documentation and no matter how badly it performs -- someone will buy their product so long as it's cheap enough.

If they simply put a little work into providing that QC and marketing, they could establish strong brands and charge a premium for the same product that many are currently selling with tiny profit margins.

I guess too many of the guys with the tech-skills don't have any understanding of Western markets or culture.

Shame really.

If I were FlySky, I'd release a separate product called the Generic 9X and ship it with nothing but the boot-loader, a serial or USB port and full documentation as to the hardware. Unfortunately that's simply not going to happen because FlySky have closed ears and no nose for a real market opportunity.

Big Shame.