Hardware producers to stay away from?

[Árni Stefán Árnason]

Hello. As I am new on this site but with a ongoing A320 project I was wondering if a discussion on the title topic has ever taken place here.Or maybe if you have a personal bad experience of particular hardware producers and then who.I have such a story to tell but before I share it I wonder if others are or have been in such a position.Kind regard´sÁrni ÁrnasonIceland

[OmniAtlas]

Hello. As I am new on this site but with a ongoing A320 project I was wondering if a discussion on the title topic has ever taken place here.Or maybe if you have a personal bad experience of particular hardware producers and then who.I have such a story to tell but before I share it I wonder if others are or have been in such a position.Kind regard´sÁrni ÁrnasonIceland

Flight Deck Solution, Skalarki, Vier Im Pott. These are great hardware vendors and they communicate with their customers. I would stick with these 3.

[bbruechmann]

My personal opinion based also on own experience, is that for an Airbus cockpit for homeusage Skalarki is THE first and best address to go. Of course, parts for our hobby is never cheap but worth the price in best case. Skalarki is top quality, well developed on a reasonable price and easy to install. I´ve got all my panels including throttle from there and very happy. Opencockpits from Spain is another trusted vendor. From there i got my A320 pedals. But also vendors from the eastern hemisphere are worth to be trusted. For my A320 flightstick i´am using a joystick base from VIRPIL Controls from Lithuania and this is really a nice and sturdy because all mechanical parts are strong metal.I personally had no bad experience yet even when i purchased stuff from china or south-america. But i always keep my head up. If an offer sounds too good to be true it isn´t true maybe. There are some bad guys on the web who promise best stuff for cheap prices, and at least the promise will never be hold or just have some nice pictures on their website but never produced these parts and sold one off them. There is nothing else you can do about it to investigate as much as possible upfront before you order or pay in advance. Look if you can find their products that someone has already got and rated. I was looking for the sliding table with footrest in the cockpit and the only one who offers this item in a very good quality is vier-im-pott. The bad part is that the price of 2.500 EUR each is very highlevel. I´ve found another small workshop from Poland who offers this part for just 500 EUR, but when i looked on the pictures there is also a big leak of quality, and though i decided to build this part my self because it´s not so high sophisticated and it will cost just a partial.Another example is the famous sliding window which is hard to find on the web as any lining parts for airbus. Vier-im-Pott is offering those for 2.700 EUR each and the only alternative vendor is Opencockpits who sell their lining kit for around 2000 EUR but with both windows and the ceiling. At least i´ve got these liners from an original Airbus and payed just 300 EUR for the sliding window and on top i have an original part from the real ac sold from second hand aviation parts seller.It´s worth to spent some time on investigation upfront because it saves you from investing too much or even unnecessary waste money.