Stratus 2 Repair Ripoff.

[ksandrew]

During a recent flight my Stratus fell off the passenger seat and the cord got pulled out. Now it will not accept a charge because of a bad connection.

Contacted the Stratus folks who told me that the receptacle is soldered directly to the board, and within their entire organization they do not have anyone capable of soldering it back on.

They suggested that I trade in my piece of crap that they manufactured for a $100.00 discount on a new poorly designed piece of crap that they call the later model from a company that does not have any employees that know how to solder.

I am sure that they are a very fine company, dedicated to quality products and customer service, that is what they say on their web page.

For the rebate I have to show proof of purchase, not sure if I purchased it on the Home Shopping Network or from Sporty's

It seems to me that if I have a chord, and there is a battery, with my soon to be acquired superior soldering skills, I could solder the pigtail ends of the cord on to the battery or hopefully somewhere before the battery . I would call it the $600.00 solder.

To improve on the original design I would make a strain relief where the wire exits the plastic case with JB weld.

Any thoughts or exchange of ideas would be appreciated

Life is a barrel of fun.

Ken Andrew
N1182J
base 1GA6

 

[Gary Ward]

During a recent flight my Stratus fell off the passenger seat and the cord got pulled out. Now it will not accept a charge because of a bad connection.

Contacted the Stratus folks who told me that the receptacle is soldered directly to the board, and within their entire organization they do not have anyone capable of soldering it back on.

They suggested that I trade in my piece of crap that they manufactured for a $100.00 discount on a new poorly designed piece of crap that they call the later model from a company that does not have any employees that know how to solder.

I am sure that they are a very fine company, dedicated to quality products and customer service, that is what they say on their web page.

For the rebate I have to show proof of purchase, not sure if I purchased it on the Home Shopping Network or from Sporty's

It seems to me that if I have a chord, and there is a battery, with my soon to be acquired superior soldering skills, I could solder the pigtail ends of the cord on to the battery or hopefully somewhere before the battery . I would call it the $600.00 solder.

To improve on the original design I would make a strain relief where the wire exits the plastic case with JB weld.

Any thoughts or exchange of ideas would be appreciated

Life is a barrel of fun.

Ken Andrew
N1182J
base 1GA6

Some of it made me laugh, thanks. They probably import them and have never seen what the inside looks like? haha
There is some one that I saw that can repair them. Sorry I don't remember who it was. Hopefully someone will be along who knows.

Not that hard to solder, might want to open it up and take a look? Someone nearby you can probably solder it if you don't want to give it try. Hopefully nothing is broken inside.

 

[asicer]

To improve on the original design I would make a strain relief where the wire exits the plastic case with JB weld.

I'd look into modifying it to accept wireless Qi charging.

 

[schmookeeg]

Dealt with this exact thing for my GDL50, and not even given the $100 rebate offer, so yay stratus here.

I took it to a cell phone repair place to fix the micro USB port that snapped off the, yeah, directly attached board with no strain relief built in.

The repair was $50 and lasted 9 months before I snapped the mofo off again.

You might ask them to hardwire something and yeah, epoxy that jerk cord into the case. I've thought about similar for mine.

PS I'm a decent hand with a soldering iron, but the surface-mount pads the micro port is attached to -- that was beyond my ken and I decided not to tackle it.

 

[mondtster]

I'd bet the solder pads got ripped off the circuit board, which will make a repair challenging. Nobody will know what the situation is for sure however, until it is disassembled and inspected.

 

[schmookeeg]

Here's how I found mine. Guessing stratus is similar?

 

[ksandrew]

This reminds me of a story from many years ago. about 1980, At work we had our first ever computer, an Apple 2e with no hard drive. After several months a mouse got inside it ( mouses had not been invented then) and peed on the motherboard. We had over $3000 invested in this computer. I took it apart and found burns on the mother board. Took a paper clip and soldered it between the burned items. It worked like a charm and we used that 2e for at least another five years. I think that these machines have many too many parts that are not needed.

I am not looking for perfection, just something that will work.

 

[manac]

My son used to work at a you break I fix. USB and HDMI ports are their bread and butter. Easy fix if you have the skill.

 

[Clip4]

During a recent flight my Stratus fell off the passenger seat and the cord got pulled out. Now it will not accept a charge because of a bad connection.

Contacted the Stratus folks who told me that the receptacle is soldered directly to the board, and within their entire organization they do not have anyone capable of soldering it back on.

They suggested that I trade in my piece of crap that they manufactured for a $100.00 discount on a new poorly designed piece of crap that they call the later model from a company that does not have any employees that know how to solder.

I am sure that they are a very fine company, dedicated to quality products and customer service, that is what they say on their web page.

For the rebate I have to show proof of purchase, not sure if I purchased it on the Home Shopping Network or from Sporty's

It seems to me that if I have a chord, and there is a battery, with my soon to be acquired superior soldering skills, I could solder the pigtail ends of the cord on to the battery or hopefully somewhere before the battery . I would call it the $600.00 solder.

To improve on the original design I would make a strain relief where the wire exits the plastic case with JB weld.

Any thoughts or exchange of ideas would be appreciated

Life is a barrel of fun.

Ken Andrew
N1182J
base 1GA6

What’s amazing is you didn’t realize the Stratus is an over priced - poor quality device before you bought it. Those things should sell for <$200.

 

[DaleB]

It's twitchy little detail work, but in nearly all cases can be fixed. I've repaired micro USB and other SMT connectors quite a few times. One of my favorites was repairing battery contacts on Garmin 696 GPS receivers. Lots of those that will work on external power, but not on battery... it's a pretty simple fix.

There are companies that design, build, sell, and service their products. There are companies that are just sales organizations, and the solution to nay hardware issue is to sell you a new one. You now know which one Stratus is...

 

[ElPaso Pilot]

This appears to be a common failure on the Stratus devices. I think the engineers did not fully understand the mass of the device repeatedly torqueing the exposed charging cable when it ultimately (and repeatedly) falls off a pitching glare screen on to the floor.

From the attached thread, and it happened to my 2 as well:

"It really sux that they STILL have this failure mode. You’d think they’d have learned after the Stratu one, for which the power point was made out of cheese"

"It may be built like a tank but the failure rate is atrocious on that power connector. All of my friends who own the Stratus 2 have had it fail."​

I switched to the Sentry.

https://mooneyspace.com/topic/28402-fixing-my-stratus/

http://bearhawkblue.com/not-fixing-...-on-a-first-generation-stratus-adsb-reciever/

 

[ksandrew]

Some fantastic leads,, thanks all.

 

[guest user]

Like others, my money is on just needing to r&r the receptacle in the Stratus. In that case, I second (fourth at this point?) the suggestion to just hit up a cellphone repair location. They should have all the stuff on hand to do it immediately.

 

[David Loftus]

I have the same issue with my Stratus 2. Their approach to customer service is abysmal. Will never buy another one. An $800 brick caused by an inferior $2 connector. Ridiculous

 

[Pinecone]

One way to keep this from happening would be to form a loop in the cable and use some electrical or gaffer's tape to tape the loop to the case. So when it falls, the force is on the tape, not the power connector.

 

[ElPaso Pilot]

One way to keep this from happening would be to form a loop in the cable and use some electrical or gaffer's tape to tape the loop to the case. So when it falls, the force is on the tape, not the power connector.

Except that it's still a heavy brick and if it falls on the exposed connector, the PCB solder-pad mounted connector takes a heavy wallop beyond spec loads.

The connector should have been mounted to the case for strength, not just the pcb. Like this:

I also assume the reason they used the wacky double USB connector on the Stratus 1 and 2 was to add additional solder pads as a quickie engineering fix for something they already knew was a problem.

 

[Pinecone]

Keep the cord short enough so as it falls the cord rotates it so it doesn't fall on the connector.

 

[ktup-flyer]

Get the sticky pad for the glareshield or Velcro it somewhere.

 

[Sluggo63]

I don’t know if I understand exactly what broke, but I just flew with a guy who had something like this on all his electronic devices:

540° Rotation Magnetic Charging Cable, 3 in 1 Magnetic Phone Charger [4-Pack, 3ft/3ft/6ft/10ft] 3A Fast Charging Cable Support Data Transfer USB Magnet Charger Cable for iPhone/Micro USB/Type C Device https://a.co/d/bDQUqQf

It was just a little button that was on the lightning/USB port, and the charging cable was held on magnetically. That way if something fell, the magnet would just pop off.

Would this prevented your Stratus from breaking?

 

[Archer Jack]

I bought my Sentry 3 or 4 years ago. Seems like it was about $350 back then. It has never given me a problem.

 

[ElPaso Pilot]

I don’t know if I understand exactly what broke, but I just flew with a guy who had something like this on all his electronic devices:

540° Rotation Magnetic Charging Cable, 3 in 1 Magnetic Phone Charger [4-Pack, 3ft/3ft/6ft/10ft] 3A Fast Charging Cable Support Data Transfer USB Magnet Charger Cable for iPhone/Micro USB/Type C Device https://a.co/d/bDQUqQf

It was just a little button that was on the lightning/USB port, and the charging cable was held on magnetically. That way if something fell, the magnet would just pop off.

Would this prevented your Stratus from breaking?

Possibly, except the 1 and 2 Strati (?) used a goofy USB micro b superspeed double connector that nearly no one has... and no one adapts to.

 

[Skyrys62]

We've done several things to try and stop some of our users from breaking the charging and/or USB ports on laptops.
They are persistently creative.

One of these screwed strategically to the case may also help.



Or just drill 2 holes, and run a cable tie through one and back out the other.

This also is an option, may not hold up over time in heat/sun though.

 

[steingar]

The gen1 stratuses (strati?) did have the power connection was a major failure mode, the gen 2 less so. I've had mine for around 5 years without any hiccups. I have to admit, if I broke it I'd not be too mad at the company for not fixing it, but that's just me.

 

[NoHeat]

Unfortunately, consumer electronics products are not repaired anymore, by pretty much any business. They are now tossed out and replaced. The same for appliances like microwave ovens.

 

[Sluggo63]

Possibly, except the 1 and 2 Strati (?) used a goofy USB micro b superspeed double connector that nearly no one has... and no one adapts to.

Ugh. That would be annoying…

 

[sarangan]

During a recent flight my Stratus fell off the passenger seat and the cord got pulled out. Now it will not accept a charge because of a bad connection.

Contacted the Stratus folks who told me that the receptacle is soldered directly to the board, and within their entire organization they do not have anyone capable of soldering it back on.

They suggested that I trade in my piece of crap that they manufactured for a $100.00 discount on a new poorly designed piece of crap that they call the later model from a company that does not have any employees that know how to solder.

I am sure that they are a very fine company, dedicated to quality products and customer service, that is what they say on their web page.

For the rebate I have to show proof of purchase, not sure if I purchased it on the Home Shopping Network or from Sporty's

It seems to me that if I have a chord, and there is a battery, with my soon to be acquired superior soldering skills, I could solder the pigtail ends of the cord on to the battery or hopefully somewhere before the battery . I would call it the $600.00 solder.

To improve on the original design I would make a strain relief where the wire exits the plastic case with JB weld.

Any thoughts or exchange of ideas would be appreciated

Life is a barrel of fun.

Ken Andrew
N1182J
base 1GA6

I never understood why people buy Stratus and pay five times the price of an open-source Stratux.

 

[manac]

Because Stratux wasn’t around when I bought my $1000 Stratus.

 

[SoCal 182 Driver]

I don’t know if I understand exactly what broke, but I just flew with a guy who had something like this on all his electronic devices:

540° Rotation Magnetic Charging Cable, 3 in 1 Magnetic Phone Charger [4-Pack, 3ft/3ft/6ft/10ft] 3A Fast Charging Cable Support Data Transfer USB Magnet Charger Cable for iPhone/Micro USB/Type C Device https://a.co/d/bDQUqQf

It was just a little button that was on the lightning/USB port, and the charging cable was held on magnetically. That way if something fell, the magnet would just pop off.

Would this prevented your Stratus from breaking?

Magnetic cables are *THE WORST.* I must have tried a half dozen different brands, and none of them had enough magnetic "stick" to be worthwhile. I'd think that in an environment where there's a lot of vibration (like a plane), they would be ineffective.

 

[donjohnston]

Because Stratux wasn’t around when I bought my $1000 Stratus.

And some people just don't have "the knack".

 

[pfarber]

OP subjects a device to a load it was not designed to handle, breaks said part, then blames the manufacturer becuase a part never designed to handle the load did not, in fact handle the load.

SMT is not hard, but for the cost of the repair would most likely eat whatever profit they made for the sale. So its in their best interest to not repair it.

And losing a customer that is not gonna be happy with anything other than a new unit is not a bad call. Its a business, profits rule.

 

[Rcmutz]

I have the same issue with my Stratus 2. Their approach to customer service is abysmal. Will never buy another one. An $800 brick caused by an inferior $2 connector. Ridiculous

Planned obsolescence!