Gyro inspired by Spartan

[DominicD]

Its not really possible to see anything on an IC with a SEM. All you can make out with any detail is the top players. The problem is that most of the chip is glass, the glass becomes charged. Once the glass is charged it deflects the electrons and you can't focus on anything. This was a SEM we did last year




If you look between the two inductors (spiral things) you can see a waveyness, thats from the charged glass.

[Angelos]

Originally Posted by cbdane

Interesting. I am quoting a Microchip sales person at the embedded control conference in San Jose several years back.

You should hear the garbage they told me before I revealed to them that I have been involved with chip design down to the silicon level. There is no doubt that everything that is made by human can be hacked by human. Generally the complexity of the code protection mechanism makes the hacking process more expensive that the R&D costs to make a product from scratch. Perhaps in China this is cheaper.

Photo of the inside of the gyro sensor used in the ds760. The ourside of the sensor package is 6.7x6.7mm. This photo was taken with 20x microscope and a standard digital camera. See the icon of the Parthenon right hand side close to the top.

http://www.spartan-rc.com/pub/posts/adxrs.jpg

-Angelos

[DominicD]

Looks like an AD chip.

[fireup]

Originally Posted by Angelos

Photo of the inside of the gyro sensor used in the ds760. The ourside of the sensor package is 6.7x6.7mm. This photo was taken with 20x microscope and a standard digital camera. See the icon of the Parthenon right hand side close to the top.

http://www.spartan-rc.com/pub/posts/adxrs.jpg

-Angelos

Cool, looks like you're using an Analog Device ADXRS300/610 iMEMS sensor.

[DominicD]

Fireup i hope we are wrong about it being AD, iam not ready to be a big enough geek to recognize chips by site.

[MiniBichus]

I own a Spartan (about to buy a 2nd Spartan) and I must say I am not very happy about this news.

I think Spartan RC should look into legal matters against the knock-off, for reverse-engineer.

Spartan for me, please.

MB.

[MarkWebber]

Don't you worry. Angelos is on top of it.

[invertsick]

have spartan in my
450
500
600n
and soon for 700

will not encourage ppl who make clones

serge

[MonsterMaxx]

Originally Posted by MiniBichus

I own a Spartan (about to buy a 2nd Spartan) and I must say I am not very happy about this news.

I think Spartan RC should look into legal matters against the knock-off, for reverse-engineer.

Spartan for me, please.

MB.

Problem is that this stuff is made in China. China does NOT respect US patents. And since it's a communist govt to sue that company you are really suing the Chinese govt,,,in China. Good luck with THAT.

For 40-60 grand they can stop these from coming into the US, if they police it which means that they could stop the company from shipping the item in bulk, but if they are going onesie twosie from various etailers they'll never be able to stop it.

This is the unfortunate nature of the beast and they will get NO assistance from the US gov.

Yes, I've been knocked off too. Pissed me right off. My lawyer would have been happy to take the 50k retainer, but let me know up front that in the end, I'd never get satisfaction.

[Angelos]

MonsterMaxx,
Patents and Copyrigth are different things. In respect to Copyright things have changed in China in recent years. China now has authorities that can confiscate products that infringe copyright and they are fairly effective in doing so. The other option is the legal path which is much slower but can eventually provide compensation for loss of sales. Most importantly, there is a way to stop the owner/director of the company running another business for many years. I am fortunate enough to have family in China from my wife's side that if needed they can deal such incidents locally on my behalf which is a lot more effective. In any case no reputable shop is going to be involved in trading illegal items and risk having their stock confiscated.

-Angelos

[Angelos]

I made this post on another forum and I thought it would be useful to copy it here too...

We have designed ourselves all products we sell. We only outsource electronic assembly which entirely takes place in UK; in fact fairly local to our office so we can keep an eye on things. There are no other gyros on the market that are manufactured under license from Spartan.

Like all reputable manufacturers Spartan RC has committed thousands of hours of or R&D in our gyro and continue to do so offering improvements in free firmware upgrades. Buy any genuine gyro you wish whether that is Spartan, CSM, Futaba, JR, or CYE. Do not buy Chinese clones as this hurts the industry and delays technical developments in your/our hobby. The same goes for clone helis too. Furthermore, you are not saving money by buying the cheaper clone product; you are stealing from the companies that invested in the product development. Obviously the companies that clone do not incur such costs.

Clones will never deliver the performance of the genuine product since the imitators do not have the technical understanding and experience gained from developing the product and do not understand our manufacturing processes. Electronic components have more important parameters than the obvious number written on them. For example, resistors are defined by their rated resistance value but also have % tolerance and thermal drift. Capacitors are defined by rated capacitance but also ESR. Inductors are defined by rated impedance but also DC resistance and rated current, etc. The engineer that did the original work understands the design and uses expensive low tolerance - high quality components where needed and cheaper ones where it is not. The clones use cheap components throughout. Specifically, in the case of the switch mode regulator that is used in our ds760 gyro incorrect capacitor ESR and indicator DC resistance can be catastrophic as it is possible for the switch mode regulator to randomly lock up and you can guess what happens next. Additionally, each Spartan gyro carries unique calibration data for its sensor to compensate for temperature variations and component tolerances. Even our own freshly assembled gyros are unable to meet our specifications for precision and stability before they are calibrated. The cheap mass produced gyros do not undergo this lengthy process and having hands on experience I am certain that the great majority of them will exhibit temperature induced drift after a couple of minutes of operation. And finally, if you open a Spartan gyro you will instantly see difference in quality of the PCB and component placement down to the smallest detail.

Spartan RC will not tolerate illegal use of our technology and will do everything available to our powers to have illegal products confiscated from the manufacturer and distribution. If the similarities are too great one should consider that it may be more than an innocent coincident and therefore we advice model traders to get in touch with us so we can advice them which products to stay away from. We do not wish for anyone to incur losses other than the dishonest manufacturer.

-Angelos

[KAR1]

Even if this cheap copy was an exact duplicate, with the same quality (which I'm sure it isn't) I would still not buy one because I prefer to support the true innovators and not the cheating hacks. I love my Spartan and it really is reasonably priced.

[Finless]

Originally Posted by KAR1

Even if this cheap copy was an exact duplicate, with the same quality (which I'm sure it isn't) I would still not buy one because I prefer to support the true innovators and not the cheating hacks. I love my Spartan and it really is reasonably priced.

Yep... I met Angelos at IRCHA and chit chatted for a while. He has some new stuff he is designing that will be cool and innovative products... I am sure if he keeps getting ripped off he wont want to do things like this anymore and THAT would be a loss to all of us...

Bob

[MonsterMaxx]

Angelos, that's interesting on Chinese law. Unfortunately I do know companies who have been ripped off, my own (by Integy) and another (100mil of construction equip.)
I think the resolution depends on who you are dealing with in China. If it's some nobody, then yes, these things can be resolved, (but if it's nobody, you'll never collect), particularly when you have internal help, like the Chinese relatives you have.
I think your case is somewhat isolated and hope for good resolution for you.

In my own case, the $50,000 it would have taken to go after them would never have been recouped, this is assuming I have an extra $50k laying around to tied up in court for years.
In the case of the construction company, the 'thief' was the chinese government. They had not only proof of patent violations, but of corruption in the chinese government. The spend 10mil going after it and in the end, the case had to be judged in chinese kangaroo court and they walked away with 5 years of fighting and zippo for compensation.

Try writing your congressman, he won't give a crap either - unless you donate heavily to his campaign.

As to saying 'buy genuine' isn't going to do much for you IMHO. Americans have a wallmart mentality right now and it's whatever is cheapest that's get bought.
Oh sure, there's people who will stand up and do what's right, but for the most part it's the low cost item that'll get the bulk of the sales. When the item is half the price, you don't have a prayer even if the copy is a POS.

Some few will take the time to learn the difference, but most will buy the cheap copy, have it fail and assume yours (which looks the same) will give the same results.
Not only do they steal our business, but because they make a crappy copy they hurt our image too.
This is what happend to me.

I wish you all the best of luck, but I suspect you are wasting your time & $. I honestly hope you get a big settlement and collect, but I doubt it.

[Angelos]

Originally Posted by MonsterMaxx

wasting your time & $

Wasting time and money is certain; I would rather be spending my time developing new products. However, many things are happening on the background that I can publicly talk about. I have a very good feeling about this and the end result will be hugely satisfactory for anyone that has not invested money in the illegal product.

-Angelos

[Aberdeen]

Originally Posted by fireup

Cool, looks like you're using an Analog Device ADXRS300/610 iMEMS sensor.

Here you go... Order the eval kit and start making your own!

http://www.analog.com/static/importe...L-ADXRS610.pdf

[Aberdeen]

For flybarless??

http://www.analog.com/static/importe.../ADIS16365.pdf

[MiniBichus]

WOW, 3 gyros and 3 accelerometers!! Angelos, any plans to make something with that?

MB.

Originally Posted by Aberdeen

For flybarless??

http://www.analog.com/static/importe.../ADIS16365.pdf

[Finless]

Originally Posted by MiniBichus

WOW, 3 gyros and 3 accelerometers!! Angelos, any plans to make something with that?

MB.

I think you can count on it

Bob

[Angelos]

It is too expensive and too bulky for RC applications. This unit is not a single component; it uses multiple components inside to build a sensor module. We can just as easy and more economically build a similar unit from single axis sensors with it's own processor to provide the data in an easily usable interface.

As for sensors, I have registered my interest with all existing gyro sensor manufacturers and I am aware even of products that have not hit the market yet.

-Angelos