Would you trust Deviation with a 550 or larger?

Anyone using this on a large helicopter? Or would you consider that unsafe?

Help me please to understand - what makes a big bird different from the 450 sizes? Apart from the price, I mean technically...
For me a 450 would be a high loss, so if I would not trust Devo I would not use it even. Ever.
bm

IMHO there is no bugfixed Deviation release: There is the official 3.0.0 with known bugs and there are the nightly builds with bugs fixed but potentially new ones introduced with novel features.

I have two different 500 size helis, one DSMx and one Devo protocols, and several 50" planes. I have never had a problem with the TX. I did have a bad devo12 RX but everything else has been fine.

I just recently put an RX802 in my FPV plane, but I haven't had a chance to fly it yet. With FRSky I was getting my first radio glitch at 1100 meters away and I just turned around. Looking forward to seeing what the devo12 and rx802 give me for range.

Personally I would have no issue to use my Devo 12S with any size heli.
I'm currently using it with my Warp 360 and a Elf Mini DLG, and have never had any issues with the Devo. I'm using the nightly build at the moment.

I'm using it with the DSM2/DSMX protocol and it has been rock solid.

I also fly 600 sized helis with a deviated devo12. Never had an issue.

billmester wrote: Help me please to understand - what makes a big bird different from the 450 sizes? Apart from the price, I mean technically...

450: sends you to the emergency room.

500: Sends you to the ICU. Outside chance of death.

550: Lifeflight to hospital. Death if unlucky.

600: DOA, taken off the field in a body bag. Might live if lucky.

700: DOA, taken off the field in several pieces in a body bag. Outside chance you might not die.

Atomic Skull wrote: 450: sends you to the emergency room.

500: Sends you to the ICU. Outside chance of death.

550: Lifeflight to hospital. Death if unlucky.

600: DOA, taken off the field in a body bag. Might live if lucky.

700: DOA, taken off the field in several pieces in a body bag. Outside chance you might not die.

Funny. True, but still funny

yep, i know - flying lawnmowers... you can find uncountable stories and "read this first" safety sections on the net. they all agree, even a 250 can kill...
but still, i would not even fly my 450s with this if i would not trust it after trying it out.

I mean the basic idea is to fly the heli in a safe manner - away from yourself and other people-
Apart from throttle hold and failsafe going wrong, when you are near, there should be no danger to you if the remote goes berserk... if you fly the bird as described in the "read this first" safety chapters... apart from shelling out big bucks for the repairs.

Let's see: electronics are electronis - all made in China (or worse). If the board is not, then the chips for sure - so whatever. A Walkera board can go wrong with the same chance as a Futaba or Spektrum one. If you are picky, take it apart, put the board under a microscope and rework the critical solder joints with a digital heat gun... to make sure the board is "error free" There is not much else you can do, really.

On the software side... Others have factory written firmwares, tested and proven. Mostly by a single person - with a development/testing team of 2-3 persons max... most brands have a feedback forum... so not much different, really from the Deviation, apart it is not factory made (luckily...).


So - for me it looks like this: even the 450s are are expensive "not toys" for me. Therefore, flying in a safe manner, having the range checked properly, doing all possible settings right with the antennae and other rules of thumb (ESC and motor far from antennae, etc), there should be no difference in the cathegory--- 450 or bigger: fly it safely and all you can lose is money.

Buy the size of chopper you can afford to lose

If that's true I should have stopped at the MCPx

billmester wrote:
Let's see: electronics are electronis - all made in China (or worse).

Not always. I was reading a post by the guy who runs Audacity/Promodeler and he's having the parts made for their new line of servos in korea, japan, and taiwan with the CNC and assembly done in the USA, no chinese anything in them.

Ironically despite not using chinese manufacturing he's charging $69 for brushless servos but then we've known for years that the markup on servo prices are a scam.

well...
that all may sound nice... BUT
-where have the chips/electronic components/boards been made?
-a small series handmade item is sometimes worse than a high runner series made item

(I have spent 10+ yrs in high volume high tech SMD industry, as a lead engineer, please
trust me )

There is no such thing as an error-free electronic item manufacturing. what makes a difference is the level of quality control during and after assembly. Visual, in-circuit, functional, x-ray... you name it. bigger company, bigger volumes, bigger level of scrap possibility, the higher level of spend is
made on QC. Or not... depends on the country and the manufacturer. we all know walkera does not even know the word QC. so does not even matter if it is original fw or other, we all have high possibilities of hw failure anyway...

and something is fishy for me in what the guy said... the smaller the batch, the higher the cost is... exponentially. no way to undercut high runner items in price with low runners. no way. never.
the clutch is slipping there somewhere... beware

this is just my humble opinion, no harm meant

I use a Devo 8S with a Nightly build in a Gaui X5 Heli (Class 550)

I've been using deviation on an 8s for about 6 months on 2 480 sized helis 6s powered one using a devo 601rx and fuBar the other an ar7200bx, solid connection and not a single glitch!I had a nightly build until I upgraded to 3.0, and have been very impressed with it...so much so that I've now had 3 flights on my newly acquired trex 700e dfc pro hv..on an ar7200bx...great control system fantastic firmware..thank you PB and all the others who brought us this stuff! Just need the standard mixer for planes and it will be perfect for me!

billmester wrote:
and something is fishy for me in what the guy said... the smaller the batch, the higher the cost is... exponentially. no way to undercut high runner items in price with low runners. no way. never.
the clutch is slipping there somewhere... beware

I would think that too if Audacity didn't already have a good reputation. The Pantera P6 might be oldschool (though that seems to have been the intent, he seems to be big on "time proven stuff that works") but it's regarded as a good quality helicopter.

Been flying with firmware for a year now. All types from 250-600 helis to edf jets and aerobatic planes. Not a single glitch on the firmware side. The Human side well thats another story.
I'm using 3.0 on a 8S
In fact I converted my first pilot from his spectrum to the devo 8s and he loves it.

dehalo wrote: IMHO there is no bugfixed Deviation release: There is the official 3.0.0 with known bugs and there are the nightly builds with bugs fixed but potentially new ones introduced with novel features.

And the difference between this and Spektrum, or Walkera, or JR, or whatever proprietary system you prefer is that only an anointed few have the option of running nightlies, and a slightly larger set is allowed to run betas. The rest of us have to run the official releases, with whatever bugs it has - with no way to found out what those are since the bug databases are private^*.

I don't know anything about PBR's software engineering process. I can see why that might make someone nervous. On the other hand, the reason I don't know anything about it is because I haven't gone groveling through the publicly available build system to find out about it.

I also don't know anything about Spektrum (etc.'s) software engineering process. Well, except that for some reason, they're not willing to make it public. It could be that they have some secret mojo that makes their stuff way better than their competition. Or it could be that they're ashamed of both the process and its results, and just don't want anyone to see how bad they are. Unlike deviationTx, this information isn't publicly available.

Which do you think is more likely to have hidden problems that will bite you in the ass if you're not careful? A system where the process, the product, and the user complaints are all public knowledge, or one where all of that stuff is kept hidden from you?

To try and ward off the open/proprietary flames, I'll point out that commercial software has advantages (where can I find a support phone number and hours for deviationTx , and there are valid reasons for keeping commercial software proprietary. "Better quality" just isn't one of either. Good people will do a good job (and bad people will do a bad job) whether you pay them or not. Paying them is just a way to get them to do the job you need done.

*] Obviously, I'm not familiar with every proprietary Tx software vendor in the world. If there's one that's released source, or has a public bug database, or even does regular bug fix releases, I'd be interested in hearing about it.