Chinese autopilots

Perrycas

Perrycas

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I am curious. They've moved into chart plotters and other electronics, some of them are said to be really good, so I am wondering if they are building decent autopilots. Anyone heard/know anything about this?
 
Yep, I know this as well.

Plenty of experience with Chinese manufactueres. If it is deisgned, spec'd., and quality controlled elsewhere I am fine. However, I assume (maybe wrongly) the O/P was referring to either products designed, spec'd., quality controlled and manufactured entirely in China or Chinese copies of known brands.

Fact of the matter is, from considerable experience, I would not buy such products.

(and before any one jumps on me, not racist, anti China or anything like this, simple experience that China still struggle to make anything entirely of their own volition that works for more than 5 minutes (not literally), is properly supported with good spares availability and does what it says on the tin).
 
You would have to ask the Chinese manufacturers, my opinion is based entirely on my experience of products manufactured in China without oversight. I have no doubt others may have different opinions, but I can only relate to my experience. I should have known better but recently purchased a product for persoanl use which exactly fails my own tests, its been replaced three times now, long history of unreliability it would seem with many other users, very difficult to get spare parts, support almost non existent, incredible hassle to get it replaced. I have many clients who manufacture in China, and every one says without exception it only works whilst they maintain the closest of oversight over the manufacture of their products all of which, without exception, were not designed in China.
 
ip485 said:
You would have to ask the Chinese manufacturers, my opinion is based entirely on my experience of products manufactured in China without oversight. I have no doubt others may have different opinions, but I can only relate to my experience. I should have known better but recently purchased a product for persoanl use which exactly fails my own tests, its been replaced three times now, long history of unreliability it would seem with many other users, very difficult to get spare parts, support almost non existent, incredible hassle to get it replaced. I have many clients who manufacture in China, and every one says without exception it only works whilst they maintain the closest of oversight over the manufacture of their products all of which, without exception, were not designed in China.
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very true for the AV industry too. The International companies manufacturing there are reliable enough, but not the unknown local brands. Many of the factories making chinese branded products make them just once or intermittently, making unrelated products in between. It makes spares hard to source until the next scheduled production, and even then, the spares often get put back into the next production batch instead of reaching the repair market.
it is possible that the big name companies buy their spares at the same time as each production batch is made for them, guaranteeing their own stock for their warranty obligations.
 
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I don't know about Chinese Autopilots but my personal experience buying an AIS directly from China:
I bought an ONWA AIS last year; within a few months the instrument got condensation on screen to the point where it was impossible to read the screen. ONWA suggested that the screen is at fault and a screen replacement was sent; it looks identical however, they claim that this screen has anti-condensation coating.
I had numerous communications with ONWA, in short, the customer service is terrible. Needless to say that I will not consider buying another ONWA and I will not recommend them; I rather pay the extra money and buy one of the other well known makes, (probably also made in China but better specs, quality and customer care) I have a few instruments on the boat some are over 10 years old and the quality is much better than the ONWA; also the screen resolution is very poor. When it comes to customer care, Chinese are lagging behind.
 
Gee didnt think I would be kicking the hornets nest over. Yes I was asking about Chinese products, and I am aware that they already make everything pretty much. As I heard an argument once that 'the Chinese will make just what they get paid to make'. The whole gamut. Capt'n fantastics post is apposite, as based on what I had heard previously, the ONWA was good kit. Maybe not. One of the problems that seems to plague Chinese products is just that one of 'Oversight', as quality control is too often, pretty dubious. This rather why I asked if anyone knew of any 'decent autopilots'. So no one has brought up any specific Chinese brands. I guess the answer to my question is 'no'.
 
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC said:
I don't know about Chinese Autopilots but my personal experience buying an AIS directly from China:
I bought an ONWA AIS last year; within a few months the instrument got condensation on screen to the point where it was impossible to read the screen. ONWA suggested that the screen is at fault and a screen replacement was sent; it looks identical however, they claim that this screen has anti-condensation coating.
Thanks for this CF. May I ask which model gave you such poor results?
Click to expand...
 
The ONWA KP-708A. Condensation should have never got inside the instrument especially since it was kept in a dry location. So, ONWA need to change their approach to quality control and customer service. In the meantime, I will stick to Standard Horizon, B&G, Lowrance .....
 
Yes there are some really low quality Chinese products . We can all point to them.
However, some high brand non-Chinese have also put out and continue to products that we would call sub-standard if they were out of China. Tiller pilots and condensation come to mind.

Drones. All of the top quality and top priced drones are designed and manufactured in China.
I had a connection to the drone research lab at Chiba University here in Japan.
It is the largest aeronautical engineering campus. 10 PhD students.

DJI have 300 PhDs working and researching drone technology.
They are the best in at least one field and will take the lead in others.

I remember the laughter in the motorcycle press when Honda first appeared at The Isle of Man.
All they wanted to do was finish.
As Kawashima recalled:
"What I told them was to finish the race. If the machine broke down partway through, then we wouldn't get any data. We were aiming toward competition two or three years later, so we absolutely had to have at least one bike make it all the way. So I told all of them not to do it, and walked away. And then all four machines finished the race. That was more than we had expected."

Noone laughs at Honda now.
 
There has to be room for improvement with tiller pilots. For a box containing a motor, belt, arm, and some basic electronics, they are incredibly expensive. And they are notoriously unreliable and prone to water ingress and breakdown.
There was a good thread on here where someone detailed the shortcomings of his tillerpilot, including the lack of end stops to tell the motor when full travel had been reached.

A tillerpilot is less sophisticated than a diesel heater, which the Chinese can produce for about an eighth the cost of the established Western brands. So it would be great if they could apply the same approach to tillerpilots. It's probably just that the market is too small- you don't need a tillerpilot for your campervan...
 
Kelpie said:
A tillerpilot is less sophisticated than a diesel heater, which the Chinese can produce for about an eighth the cost of the established Western brands. So it would be great if they could apply the same approach to tillerpilots. It's probably just that the market is too small- you don't need a tillerpilot for your campervan...
Click to expand...

And very soon there will be no jobs for the youngsters here any more, except handling Amazon boxes or reheating burgers...their parents have sold all their children’s futures to save a few quid.
 
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