Secraft SE Retracting Landing Gear

junanata

Member
For those of us who bought the SE Retracting Landing Gear for S800 from Secraft, we know that there was a fault in the landing gear. Has anyone sent the landing gear back to Secraft and have gotten a replacement back? I have sent mine 5 weeks ago and have not received anything from them. I have sent them 4 emails through sales@secraft.net, through secraft@hanmail.net and through their site. I have not heard anything. Nothing..Nada. Does anybody know how to get a hold of them? Sorry if this subject has been posted somewhere before.
 

heli001

Triple Tree Aerodrome
What problem were you having and did you get a Return Authorization from Secraft....? we have two sets of the original RG's and have not experienced any problems at all. We are in the USA on the east Coast and there is a fourteen hour difference in time. Secraft has always been very responsive to emails and Customer Service. The hanmail.net should work, we have used both but for some reason, a few emails to the secraft.net mail address went into their spam folder or just plain got lost. being it is Korea, the turnaround for mail may take some time. I totally agree that five weeks with NO communication is a bit strange. I have never called them but I think a phone number is listed on their site....The English may be a bit trying at times......:highly_amused:
 

vislaw

Member
I also have two sets of the originals with no problems so far and have found them responsive via e-mail. I'd also like to know what problem you had and what procedure you went through to return them.
 

BorisS

Drone Enthusiast
Hi Guys, I have been through the return procedure.

Mine didn't work from day one. The whole copter collapsed on me sitting on the table. Evntually the motor stopped working completly. It not locking in nicely from beginning on was probably the indication of that.
If you already bought a version and have problems you have to right them a mail and you can get the newer one with the external servos for less money.

http://secraft.net/shop/step1.php?number=1336

Boris

(Edit) Personally i would get the newer ones ! If your copter collapses at take of or during landing with you zenmuse on etc. Its gonna be painful !
 
Last edited by a moderator:


junanata

Member
Thanks for responding guys. vislaw I went through their site and there is no set procedure on how to return it to them. I just shipped the gear with a note explaining the problem. Boris my understanding is the $318 is what you would pay extra to get the SE Retract Pro since the original price is $680. I am not sure. heli001 I was able to get a hold of Sang (Secraft) through the phone. He said he got my email. He said that he would send it out today but because of the connection problem I was not sure if he's talking about the email or the gear. I have not seen an email from him. So I assume it's the gear. I also send a follow email asking him on what I need to do to get the SE Retract Pro. No response. Sigh....
 

heli001

Triple Tree Aerodrome
Hi,

ours is working from the first day on. Till now no problems reported from our customers.

http://www.pimp-your-kopter.de/frame/-landegestelle/klapplandegestell-fuer-s800.php

Regards
Heinz

Heinz.....You do not miss an opportunity to PIMP your retracts...do you...? This thread is about Secraft....

Juan......Sang is very good about Customer Service...While it may take some time and the communications is ALWAYS a bit testy when dealing with Korea or China, please know that Secraft will come through. I am sure that you will have to pay the difference between the originasl retracts and the Pro version. I am not sure if they have started shipping the new version yet. You never said what problem you were having with the original retracts. We have well over two thousand cycles on ours and have not experienced any issues at all.....just curious what was wrong with yours.
 

junanata

Member
Heinz.....You do not miss an opportunity to PIMP your retracts...do you...? This thread is about Secraft....

Juan......Sang is very good about Customer Service...While it may take some time and the communications is ALWAYS a bit testy when dealing with Korea or China, please know that Secraft will come through. I am sure that you will have to pay the difference between the originasl retracts and the Pro version. I am not sure if they have started shipping the new version yet. You never said what problem you were having with the original retracts. We have well over two thousand cycles on ours and have not experienced any issues at all.....just curious what was wrong with yours.

The problem was it gets stuck after retracted. It is also wobbling and I don't even have anything on the air craft except battery.
 

heli001

Triple Tree Aerodrome
Juan (?),

Sorry, I am not sure what you go by.......

When we first tested the retracts, the right leg stuck in the UP position for one cycle, after about three operations, but after a that, it never stuck again. I am not sure that I understand the "wobbling" that you are talking about. It seems that there might be a break in period and that is why we tested them statically, before we ever did any flight testing. There is some slack in the down posisition, but the weight of the S800 stabalizes it. When we land and put weight on the system, there is NO instability, that we have seen. Yours may be totally different and if you are not comfortable with them, you should certainly return them for a replacement or an upgrade. For the price, we are very happy with the (Old) Secraft S800 Retract System. The Pro version can only be better and I am sure that the new price reflects that. Going to a Servo rather than the linear actuator makes for a much "Beefier" system. It appears that they completely redesigned the system for the servo and I am sure that it takes a bit of time to set that up for manufacturing.

Hopefully, Sang will get you satisfied, as he and Secraft definately stand behind everything they sell. We will be testing one of the Rhino's, in the next couple of weeks and look forward to a "Sporty" version of the Quad.......

W. C.
 

MombasaFlash

Heli's & Tele's bloke
To clear up any questions and doubts about the Secraft Retracts for S800 ...

The first set of SE Retracts never gave me any particular problems, they certainly didn't get stuck, but good ole Sang immediately sent me v2 retracts anyway just because I wrote an email asking what exactly is this 'sticking' problem I have been reading about? I also mentioned that they were a bit wobbly in the down position.

The v2 retracts wobbled even more in the down position, the reason being that their 'fix' was to shave a hair's breadth off the moving hinged portion so that it could not bind against the housing. The big disadvantage with the v1 & v2 design is that the legs are only driven to the 'Up' position. Lowering the legs relies upon gravity. No amount of sponge pads and dampers could eliminate the wobble without stopping the legs fully retracting because only one leg would go up the next time, indicating that the immobile leg had not fully locked in the down position.

Anyway, in the end I could not live with the wobble and told Sang that I was sending them both back for the refund that he had offered. In the meantime, however, v3 had been announced so I upgraded instead. The v3 SE Retracts-Pro for S800 are just as smartly made and finished as the previous two iterations but the mechanism is vastly superior. The legs are driven in both directions and the action is silky smooth. The new mechanism does not permit any wobble. Time will tell whether it remains that way.

A quick look at their webshop photo will show you how good they look - sorry Heinz. Yours are far too agricultural in appearance. A pair of v3's with associated linkages etc. weighs 295g - well less than 50% of the DJI effort with its ugly spring and string arrangement. Another point is that Secraft do not insist upon a separate supply voltage for the v3 retracts. It is just two servos that can be driven directly from the Rx - although I will use the BEC since it is already there.

Of course you must take some care with the Tx switching. You don't want to accidentally toggle the Retract switch whilst still on the ground. The Futaba 12Z permits Logic Switching whereby a combination of various switch positions can be programmed for an eventual action. So, for example, I have it set such that the S800 has to be in Atti or GPS Atti mode and the Z15 has to be in H.Free mode i.e. full 360° mode, before the third switch for the retracts will even become active. As soon as any of those three switches is moved i.e the Z15 is returned to H.Trace or FPV, the S800 is switched to Manual, or the retract switch is toggled OFF, the legs will go down. Tx Failsafe is also set so that turning off the transmitter brings the legs down.

Secraft still sells the v2, presumably since they made a whole bunch of them, but it ain't worth dabbling with. Pay the extra and get v3 retracts that you can install and forget about.

Or you can go the tractor route and pimp your copter :). Sorry Heinz, couldn't resist.
 


junanata

Member
To clear up any questions and doubts about the Secraft Retracts for S800 ...

The first set of SE Retracts never gave me any particular problems, they certainly didn't get stuck, but good ole Sang immediately sent me v2 retracts anyway just because I wrote an email asking what exactly is this 'sticking' problem I have been reading about? I also mentioned that they were a bit wobbly in the down position.

The v2 retracts wobbled even more in the down position, the reason being that their 'fix' was to shave a hair's breadth off the moving hinged portion so that it could not bind against the housing. The big disadvantage with the v1 & v2 design is that the legs are only driven to the 'Up' position. Lowering the legs relies upon gravity. No amount of sponge pads and dampers could eliminate the wobble without stopping the legs fully retracting because only one leg would go up the next time, indicating that the immobile leg had not fully locked in the down position.

Anyway, in the end I could not live with the wobble and told Sang that I was sending them both back for the refund that he had offered. In the meantime, however, v3 had been announced so I upgraded instead. The v3 SE Retracts-Pro for S800 are just as smartly made and finished as the previous two iterations but the mechanism is vastly superior. The legs are driven in both directions and the action is silky smooth. The new mechanism does not permit any wobble. Time will tell whether it remains that way.

A quick look at their webshop photo will show you how good they look - sorry Heinz. Yours are far too agricultural in appearance. A pair of v3's with associated linkages etc. weighs 295g - well less than 50% of the DJI effort with its ugly spring and string arrangement. Another point is that Secraft do not insist upon a separate supply voltage for the v3 retracts. It is just two servos that can be driven directly from the Rx - although I will use the BEC since it is already there.

Of course you must take some care with the Tx switching. You don't want to accidentally toggle the Retract switch whilst still on the ground. The Futaba 12Z permits Logic Switching whereby a combination of various switch positions can be programmed for an eventual action. So, for example, I have it set such that the S800 has to be in Atti or GPS Atti mode and the Z15 has to be in H.Free mode i.e. full 360° mode, before the third switch for the retracts will even become active. As soon as any of those three switches is moved i.e the Z15 is returned to H.Trace or FPV, the S800 is switched to Manual, or the retract switch is toggled OFF, the legs will go down. Tx Failsafe is also set so that turning off the transmitter brings the legs down.

Secraft still sells the v2, presumably since they made a whole bunch of them, but it ain't worth dabbling with. Pay the extra and get v3 retracts that you can install and forget about.

Or you can go the tractor route and pimp your copter :). Sorry Heinz, couldn't resist.

Actually it's Jun not Juan. heli001 we tested ours too and half of the time it gets stuck. In the down position it's not sturdy. Thank you for clearing it up MombasaFlash.
 

Gbox

New Member
I received yesterday the new Secraft Retracts-pro for the S800 and they looks great!
They are very well build and the mechanism is pretty smart! I couldn't resist and had to mount them immediately on the S800. The movement is very smooth in both directions and they never start to wobble. And in the down-position everything is very stiff.

Secraft recommends to cut the tube of the T frame about 40 - 50 mm. For test purposes i did try to mount them without cutting the tube. But now in my opinion the whole bi-pod is way to high…

Does anybody know, if the length of the retracts has influence on the flight characteristics?

Cheers
Charly
 

dolby

Needs more bacon!
It shouldn't affect things too much, your cog has changed with the longer landing gear so you'll want to update your mounting numbers in the assistant. I haven't gotten the new ones yet so can't say what those values should be.
 

just got my 2 units.. they are way, way nice... KUDOS!! smooth and no wobble in down position, no wobble in up position... also smooth action too..
 

MombasaFlash

Heli's & Tele's bloke
Well I have taken them off again because I am seriously unimpressed by the fact that the v3 retracts burst into action as soon as power is applied, if powered up at the same time as the Rx etc. This means an extra power cut-off switch is required so that power can be applied AFTER the rest and I have no means to do that right now. However, they are a vast improvement in terms of absence of wobble and operation is smooth in both directions.
 

BorisS

Drone Enthusiast
hmm really ? haven't tested them yet on the copter just with a servo tester. So RX and V3 powered up at the same time ( I guess V3 powered over a bec and only signal in the RX) and they retrace up ?

Thanks

Boris
 

heli001

Triple Tree Aerodrome
Momba,

I'm missing something also. They Retracts) should not "Power Up" until the gear Switch or whatever switch you assigned to them is operated. My transmitter gives me an alarm and will not connect, if the gear switch is in the UP position and I can set that alarm on any channel I want.....Maybe I am missing something in the translation......
 

MombasaFlash

Heli's & Tele's bloke
... So RX and V3 powered up at the same time ( I guess V3 powered over a bec and only signal in the RX) and they retrace up ? ...

Well mine do. Power applied to the v3 after the Rx and everything else is on does not produce this annoying feature.
 

junanata

Member
Update:

After 7 week, a number of phone calls and 5 emails later and unable to reach Secraft I decide to email Sang using my gmail. I received an email back from him 10 minutes later with a tracking number . He was every apologetic. He said he never got my email which I sent using my company email. Instead of V2 he said he will mail me the pro version.
 

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