Adept Electronics

[Edmiller]

I have some older Adept Electronics that I would like to have repaired/checked out. Instead of rebuilding all my rockets electronics bays to accept another brand I thought it would be easier to refurbish the existing ones that have worked very well over the years.

I think that Adept went out of business a few years back but would like to contact Tom Billings to see if he would be willing to take on the refurbishment. Maybe he even has New Old Stock.

Anyone know how to contact To Billings?

 

[Kartman]

Don’t know if it is still active but his email was : [email protected]

 

[5x7]

Hey Ed,

I asked Tommy that same question ( from the address above) in October 2018. His answer:
“We have sold all our altimeter calibration and testing equipment to a company in Australia.”

So if a component was replaced he couldn’t recalibrate it, so wasn’t willing to do it.

 

[llickteig1]

My two cents on this -- Adept products were great and we have a number of flyers who launch with us who have used them for many years. I all honesty, however, it may be hard to get Tommy to help you. Maybe a savvy technician could give the once-over for you.

With the cost and feature set of modern electronics, I have no hesitation recommending that you take this opportunity to switch to one of the active manufacturers. The altimeters with basic functionality like PerfecFlite, MissileWorks or Altus Metrum EasyMini are all similar or smaller than the Adept footprint, so they will fit in the place where the Adepts formerly lived. You have to provide an option for an off-unit battery (having an on-board battery was a nice feature of many of the Adepts). For most, the cost would be less that a couple hours of technicians time and they offer much more flexibility.

If you "really like" the Adepts wire harness, you can rather easily assemble a wire with a male connector that mimics the pin-outs on the Adepts to make the new altimeters plug-and-play in your existing rockets.

Good luck on your efforts. Many of us wish Adept could have moved forward with the hobby, but when a manufacturer is a one-man-show, the one-man has to retire at some point.

 

[Edmiller]

As of last year all of my Adept electronics still worked except for one item. I was at NYPOWER and was hooking up a timer for my Hershey Hug upscale and it went off as soon as I attached the wiring harness or shortly thereafter. I do not know the reason. Maybe the wiring harness pushed on the swinging weight. Just do not know. Thankfully I had a spare timer of the same type and the flight was successful.

The only problem I have with switching to another brand of electronics is re configuring all of my electronics bays. Lots of effort. There are dozens of them.

I have a vacuum bottle for testing altimeters and as long as they work I will continue to use the Adept altimeters.

 

[5x7]

I still use mine and also test altimeters in a jar I draw a vacuum on. Ed, what timer model was it?

 

[Edmiller]

It is a PST941

 

[ep29030]

I remember that Transolve (John Fleischer) used to repair electronics from other manufacturers. You might contact him. His email: [email protected]

 

[tfish]

I remember that Transolve (John Fleischer) used to repair electronics from other manufacturers. You might contact him. His email: [email protected]

From John back in Dec 2018...

Sorry, out of that biz, don't have any parts. It appears to be a raw piezo
element type, no oscillator for dc operation, it is ac driven. Mouser.com
has loads of raw piezo beeps, and no minimum buy, check them out. Any one
the right size should work.

John

....Tony....

 

[5x7]

I didn’t have one of those. I wanted to know because I had several other timers and had a similar sounding issue, but the PST941 only latches for 2 seconds. I was testing my timer and it stays latched on once the time is reached, in addition the capacitor stays energized when the power is removed. I think I tested, powered off and connected a match which went off (nothing harmed). I think there is a way to drain the cap after testing.

 

[Rocket86]

I've always had great success with all of the Adept electronics that I have. I use many brands but the Adepts had some special features I like. If anyone decides to move on from their Adept altimeters and have any DDCS2's to sell, I'm looking.

 

[ksaves2]

All electronics age. I have a couple of Kenwood D7A(g) APRS Ham radio handi-talkies whose oscillators have gone off calibration on the 70cm/400Mhz band. Can't use 'em to track Beeline GPS trackers anymore and not worth the money to try to have fixed. There are more modern radios out there and if one fixes an old device, something else can go wrong. There comes a time when a device as important as a deployment altimeter should be retired. Just my opinion. Kurt