Castle looking ESC coming to hobbyking
 

Hey Castle... Wondering if you know anything about this.. I was browsing through the Hobbyking warehouse's photos of upcoming products when I stumbled across this...

http://c0013554.cdn1.cloudfiles.rack...com/x2_380adea

can be found here:

http://plixi.com/p/58764778



Dont shoot the messenger just putting it out there:whistle:

Ben

it also says under the picture: "New ESC, with powerbar, powerpack heat dissipating FET's, SBEC and two PCB plus cool (castle-like) heatsink. "

If they are starting to copy companies like castle i think i'm going to start going elsewhere for batteries

Whoa, If I was Patrick I'd be seriously PO'ed !

UNLEASH THE LAYWERS PATRICK!!! it really does look identical.
My grandfather worked for cinci. Electronics up until the nineties and one of his jobs was to dissassemble rival electronics to see if patents had been infringed,and after looking at this and castles esc he said it looked lawsuit worthy...--Josh

:surprised:not a good thing to see,,i only hope that nobody here will buy those cra........ copied esc:whistle:

Unbelievably shameless copier. They didn't even change a color.

Screw hobbyking I had some electronics (batteries) from them broken out of the box. Never again!!!

Those do like CC. Hmm..

BMW318TI - did u ever consider using warranty?
HK changed my 2 lipos with no problem.

Good luck with the lawsuit... No experience in working with sales in China I assume..
It 's a shame and as long as the customers keep buying cheaper copies they will continue to sell them... I hope CC managed to establish strong bonds to HPI, traxxas etc!

at least those knock-offs will not have the awesome customer service and programmability of castle's escs.

i like to get a lot of electronics from hobbyking, but ever since i got my first castle esc, i have been hooked. i now have 4 (5 soon) castle escs and 5 (6 soon) castle motors.


my point is, even though hobbyking can make a castle esc look-a-like, they will never be as programmable or reliable as the real thing.

I'm not condoning it, but cmon guys where do you think hpi and traxxas stuff is made? The slash 4x4 comes out of the box with aade in tiawan sticker on the chassis. Fact is castle is one of the only companies I know of that still actually makes almost all of their stuff in house here in the states. We all know that the only similarities will be the looks. Good luck with reliability and cs but you get what you pay for. Buy ten cheap copies or the real deal don steel cc stuff once. I'm not surprised at all. Hpi has been using cloned castle stuff for a while and no body even flinched. Don't know if it's made by castle but if it was why rebadge it or put it in a different motor can? We are all happy to buy the turnigy pack which are more than likely the same cells in our American packs but we are mad they came out with some crappy esc clone? All or nothin. It is what it is. Won't stop me from buyin stuff there bit for damn sure I will be gettin all the momo's and speedos from the cc crew. Yes it does suck but I reall don't see it cutting into cc profit margins. More like a running joke at the factory, " look our stuff is so awesome even the chinese are trying to call it there own!"

Err hpi and traxxas "cc copies" are made by castle.

They are just branded by castle per their customers request.

Nothing wrong with that.

Even if the ESC is copied component by component, Without castle support and firmware it´s just a Green chinese ESC...

Wasn't sure. Doesn't make sense to me but then again I'm not a retailer. All I'm sayin is ya can't sell to the companies that make their stuff overseas and not expect them to rip you off in some way. Not saying it's hpi or traxxas but it does have a "power upgrade combo" listed in the
manual for the fourby slash and all you have to do is send in your working vxl combo and $250 and you get a monster combo back. What a deal huh? Can't trust in anyone but cc IMHO. Just my take on it but I'm a little too literal for most peoples liking anyway. People in the know won't get duped by this crap even if it "looks" like castle stuff and as far as stopping the blatent reverse engineering, good luck. That's just how the world works now a days. With dollar signs in everyone eyes it's easier to steal someone elses hard work and sell it for your own to make a quick buck. For shame.

Yeah, this looks lawsuit worthy. I'm having our lawyer check it out.