Compass uutisia
In 2010 my exciting journey started with Compass Model. A short time later, Compass Model was able to find a strong partner with Jürgen Karg and MTTEC. The whole time Mr. Luke Lao was the owner of Compass Model and a very good friend of us. Many times we traveled to China to the Compass factory and actively helped with processes and optimization of those, we discussed new projects and spent a good time together.
From 2011 to 2013, Compass flourished. Sales in WARP and 7HV kits were great and promised a healthy development of the company.
But in 2014 the entire rc-model industry started to crash. Many manufacturers (even long-established ones) disappeared or withdrew. Also we had in connection with this strong collapse and the also very bad dollar exchange rate an extreme loss of sales.
This led at the beginning of 2016 to the fact that a large part of the machine park was sold as it simply could not be utilized.
Salary increases of 20-25% per year made life even harder. China's boom and rising costs caused big problems. Under these conditions, the introduction of the eXo has suffered a delay of about 9 months. Other problems in the pilot series, which were not noticeable in the prototype phase, caused a further 3 months delay.
Somehow, we managed to stay alive and Luke Lao decided to more costs by giving up his big production building in the heart of Zhuhai in the spring of 2018. Everything had to be moved to a new building. Everything needed to be ready right on time for the end of the Chinese New Year 2018, when sales and production should continue. But then just a day before the promised date, we received the message that Compass Model does no longer exists.
Luke Lao has given up and according to him he has scrapped the entire stock with hundreds of thousands of screws, ball bearings and several thousands of spare parts. He also scrapped about 50 injection molds. Without talking to any distributor. We were stunned and could not believe that. We tried to get more information in the following days. We asked several times if the parts were still available and we asked Luke to help us. We kept asking ourselves the same question again and again: who is destroying such quantities of material without asking potential buyers? We would have taken everything immediately, because we are sure that these products must not die. We have a large customer base and many loyal users. In these products is our lifeblood is our soul and a lot of sweat and blood.
In the next weeks the hell was going on. The most important dealers and distributors were completely or partially informed and we discussed how to proceed. It quickly became clear that support for old models is no longer possible. The sales figures are too low and some parts will not reach the minimum quantities that would be necessary for a production in 3 years. We have to limit ourselves to Chronos and eXo 500. Another slap in the face. But one thing we know for sure - it has to go on!
But where there is shadow there is light. And in this case a 500 megawatt spotlight named Luca Invernizzi. A good friend of us, with whom we have been in contact for many years. We are proud to have found a strong partner for this task like him. After we had a first good conversation at the ROTOR-Live fair we were sure, to continue together with him. Many information had to be collected and evaluated. We visited Luca in Vietnam and got an impression of his company and were impressed. Luca is an Italian who has been living in Vietnam for many years. He is known above all for the excellent quality of the Lynx products and of course for the Oxy helicopters.
The Chronos has been completely redesigned. The helicopter now has much fewer components, a much more massive main gear with an extremely robust sprag clutch. The weight of the mechanics could be reduced by more than 300g (10oz). The tail boom is now without struts, is drop-shaped and the tail control rod runs inside. Many of the new components are compatible with the old Chronos and can be used as a replacement.
Many old spare parts of the Chronos are only partially possible to do them again, since the market is still very broken and many customers will upgrade anyway.
The big problem with old parts is that it makes little sense to continue to make some (even quite common) parts, if neighboring parts would incur large losses and thus no longer can be produced. A good example is old tail rotor shaft. As already mentioned, all molds and parts have been scrapped. It makes no sense to continue to do the tail rotor shaft with a dowel pin, where the old pulley will not exist anymore and because in future it will be made of aluminum and fixed with grub screws. Even the old tail grips are pointless, since the Chronos will use the eXo 500 aluminum tail grips anyway and now the mold is lost too...
Wherever it makes sense, the old parts will continue to be used or used in an optimized (mostly weight-reduced) design.
Existing Compass Chronos users will get the option to rebuild their model with all the important elements of the new Chronos. We will calculate the price for the conversion in a way that most customers will be able to convert. This models have to keep flying. First eXo 500 parts will follow quickly, as well as the new kit. We know that we have spoiled the flying season for many users, but we are also proud of what we have built up in just over 3 months and we are promising a better quality for our products in the future.
Our new products made by Lynx will convince you. The company Compass Model is unfortunately history with this statement and this makes us very sad. All existing dealers and the entire Compass team will continue to be provided by us as usual. All products are expected to be marketed under the brand RAGE-RC. Customers worldwide will be able to shop in various shops and at our distributors. Similar to Oxy or Lynx our customers will be able to order directly at the factory. A fast worldwide shipping with very attractive prices is given here.
At the moment, we are in a phase of pricing, manufacturing planning and implementation. We have to ask you a little bit of patience again, but here are the first official pictures of the new Chronos for you guys and we hope that you will like it as much as we do. Some changes are still possible at this moment, if we find out that they are necessary.
We are taking an enormous financial risk but it is simply a must for us that this hobby and our products need to continue to exist. Perhaps many customers (who were justifiable angry in the last three months) now understand why things were handled the way we did. As long as nothing was ready and clear and the new products were not finished, we did not want to shine with unsure information.
In retrospect, we are optimistic about the future and are happy about some parts of this development, even if they were - for us too - clearly too fast and in an unfortunate way. For too long, developments have been implemented unnecessarily slow and too many quality issues caused headaches. It simply lacked in constants. Lynx and its consistently good quality is beyond any doubt and Luca can quickly implement our ideas. We too can be a great help to Luca in many ways. A enormous benefit for each other. In fact, in this difficult time, a comprehensive cooperation has become more important. Together instead of against each other!
Many thanks to all loyal Compass Model customers. Enjoy your models as long as possible and just have fun with it!
Sebastian Zajonz
Aihe: Uutisia maailmalta (Luettu 190223 kertaa)
03 Marraskuu, 2009, 10:02:39