HKs collective quad

[Lee]

Did anyone catch the last weekly update from HK.
There was a shot of what looked like an exact copy of a Stingray 500.
They said they would be showing it to us very soon.
Interested to see that one.

[Derek]

I must have missed it but I'm gonna go back through their last few videos to see if I can find something on it, lol.

[KevG]

Yeah that caught my eye Lee, be a chunk cheaper hopefully but what will HK do about cloning the controller

[Tony]

ive seen the stingray video on flighttest channel, that looked awesome, and harder to fly that a heli.... i stand no chance...lol. be interesting to see HK's version

[Derek]

I can't imagine that it would be any harder than flying a helicopter.

[Derek]

I still haven't found the video that you are talking about. ha ha ha, I must just not be looking at the right place at the right time, lol

[murankar]

I have flown the Stingray on RealFlight 7 and its not all that hard. {In the sim}; I enjoy how the quad handles, its smooth and responsive. I like to use the nose camera view to simulate FPV with it. Inverted it flies really well and handles like a heli.

[Lee]

Here it is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2o0kdpaq1o

[Tony]

I can't imagine that it would be any harder than flying a helicopter.

Yeah but Derek, it's hard to fly a helicopter...lol, I'll get there

Nice looking quad though, noway would I pay that much though, I'd rather have a big heli

[Derek]

Very cool to see this! As usual, I'm sure there are gonna be some haters but I wanna see more of this thing.

Skip to 1:58 to see a bit of this quad

The original CY Stingray 500 is $700 from A Main Hobbies and $800 from Helidirect.

What will HK charge for their version???

[pvolcko]

Okay, this is where I really hate on HK and all the clone knock off makers. CY made something unique, invested a bunch of time and money in it, and has been trying to sell the things. Yes, they're expensive, but there is still nothing out there like it. The new fixed pitch 3D quads are also cool, but you have the bang the hell out of the sticks, there are physical limitations on how responsive it can be and how much you can scale it up, etc. And ultimately there isn't anything hugely innovative about it except for the reversible ESC firmware and a small tweak of otherwise standard flight control/throttle control firmware, which isn't all that novel. They have invested time in the ESC firmware to get the reversal dialed in and as snappy as possible, but it has been done before and isn't in and of itself anything all that inventive. There are clones of this popping up now, but the barrier was much smaller and the level of novelty to what they did wasn't all that high.

The CY stingray, however, is still quite unique in the industry and the most capable 3D quad out there. For these <censored> to come in and clone it is a crying frikin shame, imo. Totally predictable, but also hugely unethical and a disservice to the hobby. I hope CY pursued patenting on it (both control system and overall drivetrain and mechanical control design) so he can sue these jokers out of business. If they had any scruples at all they'd be paying royalties to CY for each one that they sell, regardless of any patent status.

[murankar]

I like to think that a business man like himself would have patented his work prior to release. The issue is that the patent may take a while to go through the approval process. Lets say for the sake of this he did patent and nothing was pending in the process. Is that patent going to protect him globally? KDE Direct (whatshis name) addressed this issue on RCHN at one point. He said he has to be 6 months ahead of the market on designing. Basically he will design what ever it is for about 6 months before he even breaks wind of what he is doing on the project, basically the product is weeks to days away from going live on the market. In the back ground he has new projects in the works.

With Hobby King working out of Hong Kong they are able to pull a lot of shady stuff out of thr factories. Whats more is that they only clone the hot stuff. Look how lonk they have been cloning a clone; I mean Align. There is one thing HK has to do to produce a new product, buy a new Align kit. Look at the MKS servo clones, KST clones. Really the only thing they can make that's not a clone is a battery and other misc items. I would say they have a high percentage of products that we copied from the blood sweet and tears of others. As long as we shop with them the more we say its okay to clone.

[Tony]

There's only one reason I buy clone stuff, and it isn't much is because of price and my current skill level as a pilot (which is crap).. Because I crash and build more than I actually fly it has to be cheap.... But when/if I get to a competent skill level I'll get a gobby for sure....

[murankar]

By that time we (you and I ) get that good HK will have that cloned too. I will tell you once I got off the clone things got way better. My repair costs are on par with Align and I have a quality kit that takes a beating. My EXI would have looked like my Protos if it was in the same crash. Yeah its cheap to fix a clone if its only one or two parts but when it comes to extensive pieces to fix its about the same in cost. Crash kits are great and its great to have a stock of those parts but if those spares are Align you should just get an Align.

with the Stingray I would rather front the 500 or so USD and get a quality kit then take my chances on something that was copied. There is the off chance when HK made this thing that they may not have understood the design and why it was made the way it was. I have seen the stingray in person, I saw it go in and I have seen the aftermath of said crash. Damage was minimal maybe $75 USD in repairs. In the grand scheme of things thats not bad at all. With the HK version that same crash could cost more due to more broken parts. In a not shell either way the design is very cheap to fix in the long run. One motor and one esc vs four of each. The belt and TT system is not to hard to understand after you look at it for a minute. The motor drives a TT style shaft that in turn spins 4 belts which drives each of the 4 props. One thing I did over look was the 4 servos that drives the pitch of the blades. I can't remember what servo it uses but I am sure they are not much bigger than a tail servo for a 450. Down side is gears when the servos strip or for maintenance when slop develops. Personally I would stick with the real deal.

[Tony]

When I first got a CCPM heli back in jan this year. Blade 450 3d, it had crappy wooden blades on, which I smashed.. So I decided to get some good ones. Picked the align carbon fibre blades £23+ a pair. First flight I crashed yet again. (I'm good at crashing).. Anyway I decided to just buy cheap ones after that, got 4 pairs for the price of one align pair... Still got the align blades. Sometimes it doesn't pay to buy expensive parts I don't think!! Especially at my level of piloting skills

[Graham Lawrie]

HHHMMMMMmmmm:)