Made in USA

baker2055

Member
I'm looking for a quad similar to the size and quality of the Inspire Pro. Is there something made in North America similar with a built in camera?
 





I have never made it past looking for Frames made in the USA and those were small FPV racing frames.

Not saying it cannot be done, but I would think it is going to be very difficult to remove rest of the world completely from the equation. Some days I have trouble finding what I want for sale in the USA regardless of where it comes from.

You could try to piece one together, ESCs, FCs, Cameras (any major electronic) is going to be really tough. The frames you can find, I think Aerial Pixel might be USA but not sure. I haven't spent a lot of time looking at those frames because they are hard to come by and the companies don't seem to last long with little demand for expensive medium sized drone frame. Motors from USA companies like KDE, Neu, and... but I won't guarantee their motors are made in NA but they are good companies to my knowledge and dealings and are based in USA.

Add Germany/Europe you could pick up some more components from Companies based there but not sure there stuff still isn't made in China.
 

DroneTalk

R/C Expert
Staff member
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Few frames I make.


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baker2055

Member
I have one of the earlier hexcopter from Quadrocopter US, frame from New Zealand, flight controller from Germany, nothing on it made in China. I'm just hoping USA will step it up and produce everything here!
 

Old Man

Active Member
Can't, labor rates too high, environmental and other regulations too restrictive, payroll taxes are exorbitant, work comp and disability are cost killers. Toss in self employment and inventory taxes and you're done.
 

baker2055

Member
I'm not asking for cheap I'm asking for a product build here at home. I paid $100 for running shoes, made in China I'm sick of supporting China, I would pay $200 if they were exactly the same made in USA. I know costs are high I have 10 employees. But we have to decide as a country when are we going to stop supporting their economy and support local. Most of these multirotors are built by robots so we can do that here! I also am concerned about the technology portion of the multirotors why aren't the flight controllers made here. John Deere gets local company to engineer their dashboard controls then gets China to reproduce them. The R&D company owner told me it could be done in US but its not. He has over 1100 employees.
 

Supply and Demand, there is not enough Demand for higher quality components that are made in the USA. You might want them, I might want them, Bob might want them, but the three of us will not keep the doors open for a company. Some of it probably comes from the age group involved with the majority of drone sales and some of it has to do with a drones life expectancy I suppose. Maybe it is not fair but I do not think you have many people right now that would consider buying something of the quality that it could be handed down to their kids when they can buy something cheaper and spend the rest at Starbucks. Hell, most people don't respect what they have regardless of its cost or quality (My opinion), so why would they spend more. Not drone specific, just a comment of the status quo.

And in general, we are not talking just double the price, often I would say double is the low end all the way up to 4-5x depending on what you are shopping for on similar items (read not the same). Look at your collection of drone parts or tools and what you have spent, could you afford to have what you have currently if everything was four times more expensive? This is the flip side to the coin of spending more on a perishable item. I will build a cheap as possible drone to try stuff with so I don't have to risk my more expensive KDE motors doing stupid things :D because it hurts the wallet more to replace those KDE motors than multistar motors. I also won't use my good wrenches as a hammer in a pinch.

If you are going to shoot gaps in trees at 65 mph and likely break something this afternoon, do you want to loose 40 bucks or 120 bucks in parts?

One of my other hobbies is firearms. Here is a group that is really fighting for USA made items of a higher quality and accepting the higher price. A scope mount might be 60 bucks made in China or 200 bucks made in USA, there was a time that very few would want the 200 dollar mount but that has changed significantly in the last 5-10 years. We now have enough people demanding that $200 high quality mount that shops can stay open. As a result you have shops like Larue, TPS, and American Defense that have opened and are doing well with cult followings. But even considering how well the american made industry is doing in firearms, you still have a large portion of the group that will buy a scope mount or a hostler or a bi-pod from an over seas manufacture because they save 75%. And that same person will let you know how stupid it is that you paid four times more for your similar product even though you supported an American company doing so.

Buy once, cry once.
 

Old Man

Active Member
Try getting a good set "loading" that cheap bipod. Tried that and accuracy suffered until stepping up.
 

violetwolf

Member
I think the powers that be saw an inevitable economic crash coming in the West and decided to lift trade tariffs knowing full well that we would find ourselves in this situation. Not only have all the jobs gone overseas, but we are losing the skills at the basic level... We'd be hard pressed to manufacture vacuum tubes and magnetic recording tape right now (as an example). In another decade this will be true of almost everything.

I think we (corporate interests) sold out to China in order to stave off the inevitable crash that's coming. And when it does we won't even have the skills to make a comeback.

Who will buy ANYTHING when we have no jobs...
 

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