ARTS 2 and OZARK Aerospace

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Larry Curcio

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I am informed by Scott Kormeier at Loki Research that

1) The ARTS 2 flight computer is no longer available; and

2) Ozark Aerospace has close its doors.

There yet exists this link:

DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS LINK
https://www.lokiresearch.com/ozark/indexc1c0.html?src=directory&view=products

Which took my order for an ARTS 2 back in May. I daresay it will take yours now (?), BUT YOU WILL RECIEVE NO INSTRUMENT.

I don't know if I was charged. (I suspect I wasn't) Will find out this weekend at the bank.

-Larry Curcio
 
I suspected this for some time. They stopped answering emails. I hope you were no charged and both Scott and Jeff are good guys. I doubt you were.
 
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Anyone interested in a partnership to buy out the intellectual rights and begin producing them? IMHO it's still one of the best altimeters out there...
 
I agree it was one of te best altimeters out there. I like the way the gps and altimeters could be integrated and provide telemetry.
 
Anyone interested in a partnership to buy out the intellectual rights and begin producing them? IMHO it's still one of the best altimeters out there...

I dont know that it would be worth it overall.... My thoughts would be to go in for "service" of the existing boards... But, then again, always someone wants the impossible... Good way to ruin a hobby.
but, i have been able to fix mine... which i am sad to see that they have decided to stop. image005.jpg
 
Yes, I also like the design which I have found very durable and bullet-proof. Yet, looking around, we have had some nice advancements in altimeters from Perfectflite, Adept, MARSA and Featherweight over the past couple of years. I have a handful of rockets av-bays laid out for the ARTS2 including my L2 and L3 birds, but frankly, if my ARTS2 ever goes south, I would likely just redo the av-sled for another alt, versus trying to maintain a discontinued product.
 
Yes, I also like the design which I have found very durable and bullet-proof. Yet, looking around, we have had some nice advancements in altimeters from Perfectflite, Adept, MARSA and Featherweight over the past couple of years. I have a handful of rockets av-bays laid out for the ARTS2 including my L2 and L3 birds, but frankly, if my ARTS2 ever goes south, I would likely just redo the av-sled for another alt, versus trying to maintain a discontinued product.

yeah... point is on mine the chip was .20 cents.... why throw it away.... Those SMD's are sooooooo CHeap... would you pay 25.00 if someone could replace some transistors...
one of mine got hit by a ziptie, on a 50g launch, i lost the switch(in the photo), and 2 other capacitors... cost me 1.34 in parts.(and i bought extras).
makes me sick to think of throwing it away, because of the easy fix...
 
I'm shifting to Perfectflite for smaller airframes and MARSA where I want the flexibility.


Still, I'm sad to see them go. Not that service was ever a point in their favor.
 
yeah... point is on mine the chip was .20 cents.... why throw it away.... Those SMD's are sooooooo CHeap... would you pay 25.00 if someone could replace some transistors...
one of mine got hit by a ziptie, on a 50g launch, i lost the switch(in the photo), and 2 other capacitors... cost me 1.34 in parts.(and i bought extras).
makes me sick to think of throwing it away, because of the easy fix...

But how did you troubleshoot it without the circuit diagram?
 
But how did you troubleshoot it without the circuit diagram?

it was during the aquisition time period of LOKI, and Scott was able to get me the capacitor and switch part numbers for digikey. I broke the board on a J1000 flight at LDRS30.

you would probably have to purcase the IP of ozark to get that information for all the parts...
 
Now that is an idea. A last buy. That with a circuit diagram and board artwork, and you are pretty much "golden."

How much would you think the IP to be worth.....? I think it would be hard to quantify a real value.

Pulling my chain to service them.. wont be hard... !
 
How much would you think the IP to be worth.....? I think it would be hard to quantify a real value.

Pulling my chain to service them.. wont be hard... !

Clay, oh, are you putting up your shingle? BTW, I have an Xavien timer that needs fixing (likely the board regulator as it gets "da%m" hot when I apply power)...

Estimation of value (part of my vocation, www.apexconsulting.com) has to accompany some financials, but given that the original owner has given up on the revenue stream, I would say that there is nearly zero ongoing business value. Now IP is a different story and may worth a modest amount depending on what technology has been built/developed outside of the ARTS2 proper, i.e., GPS, telemetry, etc.
 
Clay, oh, are you putting up your shingle? BTW, I have an Xavien timer that needs fixing (likely the board regulator as it gets "da%m" hot when I apply power)...

Estimation of value (part of my vocation, www.apexconsulting.com) has to accompany some financials, but given that the original owner has given up on the revenue stream, I would say that there is nearly zero ongoing business value. Now IP is a different story and may worth a modest amount depending on what technology has been built/developed outside of the ARTS2 proper, i.e., GPS, telemetry, etc.
Ozark as a buisness doesnt really have a paper value as i could see, you would only be buying the rights to the existing property... For me the bonus would be the DA/interface... the circuit board is easier than the programing, (as bill gates would say)

BTW.. same on the xavien... if you dont know the specs, your kinda in a closet..
 
Ozark as a buisness doesnt really have a paper value as i could see, you would only be buying the rights to the existing property... For me the bonus would be the DA/interface... the circuit board is easier than the programing, (as bill gates would say)

BTW.. same on the xavien... if you dont know the specs, your kinda in a closet..

I am not sure what happened to Xavien, but what I do know is he deployed a bunch assigned to or attached to the military. I thought of ordering but that the time, their service seemed sketchy.

Ozark was the same at the end.
 
I would only be interested in the circuit design, artwork, and firmware source code for the actual ARTS 1 & 2. It looks fairly simple to assemble. and scaling it down in physical size would be straightforward.
 
I would only be interested in the circuit design, artwork, and firmware source code for the actual ARTS 1 & 2. It looks fairly simple to assemble. and scaling it down in physical size would be straightforward.

Would that be for personal use or to produce a product?
 
you could scale it down, but if you changed components such as sensors, your firmware probably would need modified.
 
I would consider building it for sale with the right partner.

As to scaling it down, the ARTS has plenty of wasted space on it. You could probably lay the board out and drop it 30% without much effort, Just rearranging/re-selecting the terminal blocks would help.
 
It was large compared to instruments today. Also, UCem had an issue with the firmware - I think it was taking a single g reference reading, but there was a firmware upgrade to deal with this. On the other hand, the response was nice and linear and the inertial and barometric data were taken simultaneously. As a data wonk, I'm sorry to see it go.
 
I Just compared the ARTS 2 to the raven. They have capability but the ARTS only had two pyro channels. The big benefit to the ARTS2 is the telemetry and GPS integration. I wonder if Adrian still intends to do this?

Either way, I agree if you shrink it, I think it would be a marketable product. I would suggest a USB interface.
 
They have an ARTS3 that was never released to the public.
I saw it ar LDRS28. It had a USB connection and a third channel.

JD
 
They have an ARTS3 that was never released to the public.
I saw it ar LDRS28. It had a USB connection and a third channel.

JD

That is a shame. I guess it will be vaporware. Does anyone know why they closed up shop?
 
Based on what I can piece together

1. Jeff lost interest in being a mfr and sold the propulsion biz to Scott
2. Jeff and Erik kepy the Ozark piece
3. Erik simply had no time with the arrival of a new child.


Add all that up and the ARTS was doomed.
 
Based on what I can piece together

1. Jeff lost interest in being a mfr and sold the propulsion biz to Scott
2. Jeff and Erik kepy the Ozark piece
3. Erik simply had no time with the arrival of a new child.


Add all that up and the ARTS was doomed.

Sounds like it. Maybe Adian's raven will eventually become integrated with a GPS. Or there is telemetrium.
 
Based on what I can piece together

1. Jeff lost interest in being a mfr and sold the propulsion biz to Scott
2. Jeff and Erik kepy the Ozark piece
3. Erik simply had no time with the arrival of a new child.


Add all that up and the ARTS was doomed.

Correct Al. Add to that what Jeff mentioned. When Erik decided to show a new ARTS 3 which was not ready yet, word of its existence spread fast. It killed the market demand for ARTS 2's, which went to about half of what it was. The remaining ARTS2's seemed to sit on the shelf as customers anticipated the release of the new model, a model which would ultimately never be made. I think that is what killed Jeff's interest. It took a lot longer to sell the rest of the ARTS 2's Jeff had on hand. He didn't want to do another expensive production run and sit on them for twice as long, especially as several new altimeter models were coming out. Had the ARTS3 never been revealed, it might have been a different story, but how were they to know that "life" would get in the way of its progress.

As for the old Ozark Aerospace website, I emailed Greg Deputy and he said it was "unlinked archive content". (I'm not 100% sure what that means).
He has pulled the site down all together now so what happened to Larry won't happen again.

If anyone has any questions about the ARTS altimeters, GPS or the Ozark business, please contact Jeff at jeff(at)lokiresearch.com
 
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