GRYPHON QUASAR and AGENA - IMPORTANT

[Fabien]

Good afternoon,

Following an investigation we initiated on a Quasar GSR-7075 failure case, we have found through our own tests and through a third party laboratory and in addition with valuable information provided by our customers ( 4 in total on 1500 + units), that under certain very rare conditions it was possible that the spark or voltage surge happening when plugging in the Rc model batteries could damage the onboard Dc/Dc converter chip (the V In pin of the Dc chip is a sensitive one).

After trying to reproduce the failure, we discovered that it could happen with FBL units depending of the frequencies chosen for the servos. It has not been easy to reproduce the problem, as we had to test dozens of servos / FBL unit / servos frequencies /receivers / voltages configurations, but we did manage to simulate and reproduce such failures twice by very excessive and hard testing to units picked up randomly in the different batches. (we keep a few unit of each manufacturing batch to test and track down any possible issue raised by customers).

After extensive testing, we managed to isolate the problem (the V In pin of the Dc/Dc converter "weakness") and worked on a solution. We had to produce new PCB's with a small resistor and an actuator on the V In pin to protect it from instant surges ( plug / unplug / plug). Then we could validate the new PCB with "hardcore" testing and especially on the most problematic setups.

The Quasar and Agena units are designed for use in large helicopters with high voltages. For these reasons, we cannot let a chance for a similar situation to happen again, even if we have numerous customers very happy with their units. Even though the likelihood of failure is very small we do not want to leave this to chance.

Gryphon is a small and almost new company ( just 3 years of existence) but we intend to stay in the " high quality" range of products. It has a cost for staying in this range, and sometimes some exceptional situations need appropriate handling.

For this reason, we have decided, with our distributors / retailers, to offer simply a brand new Quasar GSR-7075 "LMT" or Agena GSR-5045 "LMT" to the existing Gryphon and Agena customers. (LMT mention allows to identify clearly on header card / heatsink the new unit).

We thank you for your attention to this important notice and request at this time that you stop using your Quasar GSR-7075 or Agena GSR-5045 and use instead a LiFe battery pack or any other BEC system if you have one available.

All of our distributors have good customer tracking systems and it is possible them to know exactly who has purchased the units. A full batch of Quasar GSR-7075 LMT has been shipped to all of our distributors last week, and you will find in this parcel a new unit to replace your actual Gryphon Quasar GSR-7075.

There is NO need to ship back the old unit. At Gryphon, we do not refurbish our product. We repair them when it's a small repair requested by the customer, but we do not refurbish any unit. This is a mistake on our side ( we could not test ALL available combination of hardware and batteries ) so we will be shipping brand new units.

We count on our valuable customers to destroy the existing unit. The Case, Heatsink and connectors are compatible with the LMT version and can be used as spare parts. But the PCB must not be used and as a result of this there will be no need for you to ship back your old unit.

We are working with the distributors worldwide to remove any existing Quasar GSR-7075 and Agena GSR-5045 from their stocks, which has been done at 90%, we are waiting ansers from the last ones now..

If you have any further questions please contact your supplier or you may contact Gryphon directly. Contact name is Fabien (yep, myself lol), email is fabien (@) gryphon.fr and i will answer you as quickly as possible.

We thank you very much for your understanding and we are sorry for any inconvenience caused. If you have any friends using the Quasar GSR-7075 or Agena GSR-5045, please do not hesitate to let them know about this replacement operation, but please tell them to wait to be contacted by their dealer / distributor (they should receive directly a new replacement unit in the next week or the week after depending of postage delays).

We choosed not to ask for a mail in return system to simply prevent our customers to have to pay for shipping returns and also to avoid our dealers / distributors to have to become postage centers for us..

For some very " exotic" customers cases, i'll do what is needed when necessary, and for all the other ones in USA right now, Experience Rc has already shipped out new units to their customers and i will be in touch with Helidirect within tomorrow evening. For any ReadyHeli customers, there is an exception, please get in touch with me directly by Mp or email please.

Please wait to be contacted by Helidirect in the next week or after, we are preparing the shipping to them for replacement unit and they should be able to dispatch the units to their customers very very shortly.

In any case, please do not hesitate to contact me for any information, i should be able to answer within 24 / 48 hours.

We thank you very much for your understanding, and apologise for any inconvenience caused.

And we do apologise to Helifreak forum owners to have to use their forum for such a thing, for us it is a potential safety issue and well we do not really know how to proced differently. Thank you for your understanding.

Fabien / The Gryphon Team

[eRaptor]

Wow. What great customer service. And attention to detail. You just raised the bar tremendously for other vendors.

I do not own one of your units, but I will surely get one the next time.

[airbound]

++1 For customer service.. They did raise the bar for other vendors .

[fishyguy]

I just installed one of these 2 weeks ago. Love the unit and this is some great customer service for sure. Thank you for being a stand up company

[Cailid]

It's nice to see a manufacturer with integrity and pride in their product.

[nwmtech]

For obvious reasons I won't be using one but I'll still always give credit where credit is due. Awesome customer service.

[Fabien]

Hi,

thanks for the kind words We just try to do what we estimate beeing a normal customer service and we are happy to read your comments

Bit more concrete stuffs, Helidirect will dispatch new units to their customers within 7 / 10 days directly.

Remains only ReadyHeli "old" customers, for these ones, pelase contact me directly (there has ben a very few units out from ReadyHeli anyway )

Thank you very much and just pop an email or MP if you need any additional information. I will post some pictures of the old and new untis to show the visual difference.

BEst regards,

Fabien

[sansone]

outstanding customer service and technical support...
worth remembering certainly
keep up the good work

[ElectricSheep]

I can only hope that "other" companies can use this as an example of *doing the right thing* when there might be a problem with a product!

[Fabien]

Good afternoon,

i just did get an email from Helidirect, they completed the shipping to customers today for the replacement units. So Experience RC and Helidirect Customers should be allright in the next coming days.
I'll check for everything else, i received 2 mp's from customers and we will check the status asap for them ( answer by MP).
Thank you very much and thanks one more time for your support
IF you go to the Toledo Expo in April, don't hesitate to come by our booth ( we will be close to Experience RC) to say hi

Best regards,

Fabien

[bobloblaw]

Hi Fabien,

I've sent a number of PMs over the last month to you regarding replacing my Quasar - can you please check your messages as I would like to get this heli in the air.

Cheers,

Jeremy.

[ElectricSheep]

Hi Fabien,

Just as bobloblaw has done, I've PM'd you here about replacing my Quasar but haven't received a reply. (I bought this Quasar at ReadyHeli). I'm sure you've been busy sending out all of the replacement units, but could you kindly check your PMs and let us know what the next steps are?

Thanks!
Gerry

[airbound]

Originally Posted by ElectricSheep

Hi Fabien,

Just as bobloblaw has done, I've PM'd you here about replacing my Quasar but haven't received a reply. (I bought this Quasar at ReadyHeli). I'm sure you've been busy sending out all of the replacement units, but could you kindly check your PMs and let us know what the next steps are?

Thanks!
Gerry

Originally Posted by bobloblaw

Hi Fabien,

I've sent a number of PMs over the last month to you regarding replacing my Quasar - can you please check your messages as I would like to get this heli in the air.

Cheers,

Jeremy.

Try His email --if you have not already tried---fabien@gryphon.fr---- Walt

[bobloblaw]

Sent an email and more PMs - still nothing from Fabien. He's quite active here with many posts since my last in the thread - I guess no support for this Gryphon owner, pretty disappointing after receiving good support previously.

[Fabien]

Good afternoon

i am sorry to answer all these messages so lately. I have not been very pro active the last weeks due to some personal reasons and i do apologize for this.

I am having tomorrow morning a online meeting with the factory at Gryphon to sort out why some of you did not receive their replacements yet, there has been some small mixup following the Quasar / Agena replacement program for the people who bought stuffs from the online shop in Korea ( Gryphon Mall) or from our "old" distributors.

Reason has been an incorrect database export ( a bug in the online shop system ) for Gryphon Mall, and difficulty to track down some informations and organise them conveniently for others.

I would thank you very much to send me an email at fabien.deregel ( at ) gmail.com for anybody who did not receive his replacement, so i can take care of it and sort out the situation. It's much easier for me to handle the emails rather than the PM's, because i can organise them for the one that are sorted ( replacement sent), the one ent but not received ( it happened to a few that we had to re send) and the ones not shipped out.

I thank you very much and apologize one more time, Gryphon factory is in no case responsible for the problems, as they always do exaclty what i request in term of after sales support, it's only me struggling with some major and urgent stuffs to sort out.

Thank you very much for your understanding and pelase send me your emails asap so i can process them this week,

Fabien

[Fabien]

HI,

please do not use my gryphon email for the moment, i have massive troubles with " OVH'" french web provider ( who is my web domain hosting company) with emails delays and troubles. I am trying to move to a better provider but for the moment it's very problematic, most of my domains ( e-copter, Gryphon, vertical-engineering ...) seem to be black listed regularly by some DNS and mail services because they are hosted on a mutualised platform and some owners of websites / domains on the same servers use the server for massive marketing campaigns or spam. Because of this, my hosting server is blacklisted on a regular basis creating loooooong delays in emails deliveries and sometiems even no email goes through..

For that reason, please use my " gmail" personal adress please for the moment,

Best regards

Fabien

[BlackWatch88]

I'm in a new build with the Guai X5 with high volt servos and I will use the Gyphone, you served me well on my trex 700N

Can you post a picture of the difference between the old and the new version? Easier for me to identify the guy selling it to me over the internet is not trying to sell me the older version.

Thanks

[jockstrap]

Fabien,

What do people in other countries like Australia do?

Also - I recently purchased a Quasar 2nd hand - how can such owners get a replacement if the dealers have no record of these new owners?

[airbound]

Originally Posted by BlackWatch88

I'm in a new build with the Guai X5 with high volt servos and I will use the Gyphone, you served me well on my trex 700N

Can you post a picture of the difference between the old and the new version? Easier for me to identify the guy selling it to me over the internet is not trying to sell me the older version.

Thanks

The updated version will have LMT after part number--ie--75aLMt--old version did not have LMT after #

[Danny_Swe]

I have been using my Quasar since february, the first version got replaced by the LMT and it has worked flawless for many flight. The LMT-version will, as said above, have LMT after the part number and it's visible on the unit as well. On the heat sink (the fancy plate) you can see the part number with LMT at last.