Cypres 2 service bulletin

[Ron 7]

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Do tell us your solution then.

1. I am not a company that sold a product.
2. They should offer to repair them NOW and they should pay for it and the pack job.

Tylenol should be case study in how to deal with a mistake... They set the gold standard and this is nowhere close.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Skybear 0]

Tylenol was a simple recall. Nobody wanted it back.

I understand your wish to get it repaired now, as I understood the wish of 31999 other people, including myself. But how shall 20 production people, all intensively trained for their job, cope with that NOW? Do you really want to wait in-line as number 27892, to get your unit back in July 2014? Get real. They were fucked up by a faulty piece of electronic that wasn't discovered although it was tested to very high standards. Now 14 out of 32000 units hung themself up, which equals 0,0004375%. Do you use condoms or does your wife/girlfriend use the pill? You should worry more about their reliability than those of the Cypres or any other AAD.

[labrys 0]

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I understand your wish to get it repaired now, as I understood the wish of 31999 other people, including myself. But how shall 20 production people, all intensively trained for their job, cope with that NOW?

My opinion is that they should figure out how many they can cope with in a reasonable time frame like a couple of weeks and then start accepting units for upgrade in reverse order of manufacture.

That would get the newer units (the ones who have to wait the longest for repair) fixed first. It really bothers me that they're expecting their newest customers to wait the longest.

Owned by Remi #?

[Ron 7]

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I understand your wish to get it repaired now, as I understood the wish of 31999 other people, including myself. But how shall 20 production people, all intensively trained for their job, cope with that NOW? Do you really want to wait in-line as number 27892, to get your unit back in July 2014? Get real.

You 'get real'. They sold a product and a major fault has been found. Their 'solution' is to hope it does not fire in the plane like it did on the ground.

You may be happy wearing something that could misfire and kill you, you'll have to forgive me if I am not so cavalier.

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Do you use condoms or does your wife/girlfriend use the pill? You should worry more about their reliability than those of the Cypres or any other AAD

A faulty condom or the pill has no danger if killing a plane load of people.

You can be an apologist (or someone that works for them?) if you want. Me, I am disappointed and have the right to claim their service sucks.

Telling someone that they have 4 years to deal with a problem is unacceptable in any industry....

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[VTmotoMike08 0]

From the service bulletin:

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...is because the manufacturer of a component made a change on an internal ASIC microcircuit (which is something like a processor) to a higher level of integration.

What does "a higher level of integration" mean?

[labrys 0]

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What does "a higher level of integration" mean?

In processors, it usually means more circuitry in the same sized or smaller package.

Edit: I have no idea if that's true in this case though.

Owned by Remi #?

[f94sbu 0]

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You 'get real'. They sold a product and a major fault has been found. Their 'solution' is to hope it does not fire in the plane like it did on the ground.

As the issue is ESD related, once the unit has locked up, it will not fire some time later. That is why they are saying that it wont fire in the plane or mid air.
When the rigg is closed, the unit is much better protected from ESD. It would require a discharge of over 50 kV for the discharge to reach the Cypres. You will be kicking and screaming in pain long before that happens.
I understand that you are frustrated that you cannot always get what you want but you really need to learn some of the basics around this issue before you claim that your world is crushing down due to this.

[nigel99 143]

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You 'get real'. They sold a product and a major fault has been found. Their 'solution' is to hope it does not fire in the plane like it did on the ground.

As the issue is ESD related, once the unit has locked up, it will not fire some time later. That is why they are saying that it wont fire in the plane or mid air.
When the rigg is closed, the unit is much better protected from ESD. It would require a discharge of over 50 kV for the discharge to reach the Cypres. You will be kicking and screaming in pain long before that happens.
I understand that you are frustrated that you cannot always get what you want but you really need to learn some of the basics around this issue before you claim that your world is crushing down due to this.

I disagree. Firstly in many (most) instances higher level of integration on an ASIC (Application SPECIFIC integrated circuit) is done to save cost. So speculatively Airtec went to cut production costs and their testing was inadequate - leaving their customers screwed. Unless they are using ASIC for a general purpose IC, the ASIC is probably specific to them and changes would have been commissioned or approved by them. Interesting to see them blame the manufacturer.

If the issue is genuinely ESD related, and it would be interesting to know the facts on this, then it is probably in an unstable state. You can't predict HOW it will react, which is why 10% of the faulty units MISFIRED (1 in 14 units). If you've ever done ESD testing, for something like a Cypres it will be an air discharge of 8-16kV typically. If people were experiencing that level of ESD while packing we would know about it - it is not pleasant.

I feel for them, but part of selling products like this is having good follow up customer service and contingencies for a major product recall.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[Ron 7]

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As the issue is ESD related, once the unit has locked up, it will not fire some time later. That is why they are saying that it wont fire in the plane or mid air.

Uh, there already was a fire in Sebastian on a packing mat of one of these units.

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When the rigg is closed, the unit is much better protected from ESD. It would require a discharge of over 50 kV for the discharge to reach the Cypres. You will be kicking and screaming in pain long before that happens.

I don't see many packers kicking and screaming in pain... But one unit has already fired on the packing mat.

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I understand that you are frustrated that you cannot always get what you want but you really need to learn some of the basics around this issue before you claim that your world is crushing down

I understand that you are making excuses... But you really need to learn some of the facts that have already been communicated and discovered before you accuse others of over reacting.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Southern_Man 0]

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As the issue is ESD related, once the unit has locked up, it will not fire some time later. That is why they are saying that it wont fire in the plane or mid air.
When the rigg is closed, the unit is much better protected from ESD. It would require a discharge of over 50 kV for the discharge to reach the Cypres. You will be kicking and screaming in pain long before that happens.
I understand that you are frustrated that you cannot always get what you want but you really need to learn some of the basics around this issue before you claim that your world is crushing down due to this.

I am interested to know why you are claiming this. The testing CYPRES documented is only up to 25 KV. Then, best I can tell, they did not perform all the testing again when they changed the circuit.

We do not have any data on what level of ESD led to the unit discharging or the other units locking up. I also would like to hear more technical details on the fix. Without some more technical details I think it is impossible to claim the unit won't fire in the airplane or mid-air. We simply don't have the information to make that determination.

I am not very technically proficient, so I am not sure my understanding is 100% correct but I am trying to figure it out.

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

[sundevil777 93]

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I understand your wish to get it repaired now, as I understood the wish of 31999 other people, including myself. But how shall 20 production people, all intensively trained for their job, cope with that NOW?

My opinion is that they should figure out how many they can cope with in a reasonable time frame like a couple of weeks and then start accepting units for upgrade in reverse order of manufacture.

That would get the newer units (the ones who have to wait the longest for repair) fixed first. It really bothers me that they're expecting their newest customers to wait the longest.

Given that some other AAD mfgs have a warranty that is only one year, then those mfgs could be expected to tell their customers tough luck (or some version of that which is even less satisfying than Airtek's position).

I think this issue might well resolve by Airtek/SSK investing what it takes to significantly increase their repair/maintenance capacity. That capacity increase will of course take a significant amount of time. I think the only other thing they can do for their customers is to offer some money as compensation. Besides money or increasing their capacity as quickly as possible, what do people expect them to do?

I've been turning my unit off then back on between each jump for the last year. I'm really not worried, this seems pretty trivial compared to issues involving other mfgs.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[captain1976 0]

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These service bulletins like aircraft SB's need to be translated by people fluent in both languages before they are released; that means the grammar too.

Otherwise you get a bunch of twisted shit like in the report you shared with us.

or they could publish it in german only

English is the recognized international language in aviation and skydiving is aviation.

You live more in the few minutes of skydiving than many people live in their lifetime

[normiss 620]

Yet in this case are there not different SB's based on the nation of sale/use of the Cypres?
That was my understanding based on what I was told anyway.
It seems this is all quite confusing.

Fix the software, find a way to get everyone updated.

Now.

[billvon 2,380]

>You may be happy wearing something that could misfire and kill you, you'll have to
>forgive me if I am not so cavalier.

You don't have to be happy - or even jump with it. You can take it out and keep jumping, or not jump until you get a new one. Your choice.

>A faulty condom or the pill has no danger if killing a plane load of people.

True. But if you pulled 50% of condoms off the market for a potential problem with a few of them, then a lot of people would get sick and/or die from the resulting STD's.

Pulling a large percentage of AAD's out of the market for months has some significant negative repercussions in terms of safety. Yes, Airtec should fix them all. However, doing it all right now might just kill more people than it saves - so I can understand their reticence to do that.

[Nelyubin 0]

There was another device will work on the ground. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4115862;search_string=cypres%20fire;#4115862
Airtek gave a strange answer technically illiterate. http://www.cypres.cc/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=389%3Acypres-2-aktivierung-am-boden&catid=84%3Atechnik-aktuell&Itemid=178&lang=en
It was the instrument of 2007.

[williammonk 0]

>You don't have to be happy - or even jump with it. You can take it out and keep jumping, or not jump until you get a new one. Your choice.

I can not accept this point of view. When I pay almost 1500 dollars for a piece of equipment, I expect it to work as designed.
Even though some people will not find this issue as cause to worry, what about the rest of us? For airtek to expect someone
who recently purchased a cypres to wait four years for a known manufacturing defect to be corrected is ludicrous.

As a moderator and highly experienced jumper, I can't believe you would liken a life saving device to a contraceptive product.

But I'm not really concerned about my cypres failing when I need it most. What concerns me is a cypres firing on the ride to altitude.
a malfunctioning cypres bringing down a load full of jumpers due to a known defect would be a crying shame.

>As the issue is ESD related, once the unit has locked up, it will not fire some time later.

From your comment, it is obvious that you do not understand integrated circuits, or the complex microarchitectures that they compose.
In a complex electrical system (such as the processor found in the cypres) the results of an ESD are unpredictable. There are literally
millions (even billions) of wires in such a processor. Even simulating an ESD on all of these points would be a grueling challenge, and
one that would not show that a misfire is impossible. Here's a quote from an oft-quoted paper relating to ESD.

"[2000 volts can] kill electronic components or even worse damage the components to where the a chip acts erratic or fails months later."
-- Not very predictable.


nigel99, I'm sorry, but research shows that you are not correct when you state:
> If people were experiencing that level of ESD [8-16kV] while packing we would know about it - it is not pleasant.

"studies have shown that a static charge built up by scuffing shoes on a carpet can exceed 20,000 volts" (but this should bolster your point.)
I walk across carpet on the way to the plane every weekend. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Now, for the few who like to do math problems and show some statistics that make this issue seem irrelevant, here's one for you guys.

(SkyBear)

37/9,000,000: 0.000411111111% -- An insignificant number, right?
Number of linked accidents versus number of toyotas that were recalled due to accelerator problems.

14/32000: 0.04375% -- Cypres units that have malfunctioned. (Check your math buddy)

Now by my math, a cypres malfunctioning is one hundred and seven times more likely than a toyota...

Would you like to send in your toyota to have a known manufacturing defect fixed?
Would you drive 23 of your closest friends and family around in a car that you know has a manufacturing defect?
Would you like the manufacturer to tell you that they will not fix the problem?

"Get real." -- I think it's time for you to get real.

scientific quotations from "http://www.texndixie.com/esd.htm"

I don't want anything unreasonable. I just want to have the option to have my (nearly) brand new cypres fixed. Anything less is unacceptable.

William.

[nigel99 143]

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nigel99, I'm sorry, but research shows that you are not correct when you state:
> If people were experiencing that level of ESD [8-16kV] while packing we would know about it - it is not pleasant.

"studies have shown that a static charge built up by scuffing shoes on a carpet can exceed 20,000 volts" (but this should bolster your point.)
I walk across carpet on the way to the plane every weekend. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Hey William, my point is that discharging 16kV (approximately) of static is not pleasant! You certainly notice it, when you build up static on a carpet and discharge into a door knob or whatever.

Regardless the ESD testing of products is normally pretty rigorous and at levels that make you flinch

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[williammonk 0]

Agreed.

Just trying to illustrate that 20kV shocks happen every day, not trying to step on your toes

William.

[ELLIOTT 0]

For somthing we can do ourselfs as a first step how about removing carpets from the packing area and replace it with something that does,nt cause static or find a way to ground out the carpets/packing mats. I will not be packinging on carpets.

[nigel99 143]

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For somthing we can do ourselfs as a first step how about removing carpets from the packing area and replace it with something that does,nt cause static or find a way to ground out the carpets/packing mats. I will not be packinging on carpets.

Make sure you remove all the Nylon from your rig.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[piisfish 135]

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Now 14 out of 32000 units hung themself up, which equals 0,0004375%. Do you use condoms or does your wife/girlfriend use the pill? You should worry more about their reliability than those of the Cypres or any other AAD.

according to my calculations that would be 0.04375%, but I quit doing maths 20 years ago.
We don't use either, very happily I still have 2 Cypres (1 being from november 12...)
I still don't want anything but a Cypres in my rigs
When they said they had no cases in Europe, do they not consider Switzerland as Europe ?

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[swoopin 0]

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I don't want anything unreasonable. I just want to have the option to have my (nearly) brand new cypres fixed. Anything less is unacceptable.

Many countries have laws specifically designed to assist consumers such as yourself. It might be a good idea if those that feel they would like their money back to start exploring the laws pertaining to grantees in their country/state.

Especially if your unit was purchased from a local reseller.

[piisfish 135]

monk, I will buy your Cypres at Argus price

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[Ron 7]

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True. But if you pulled 50% of condoms off the market for a potential problem with a few of them, then a lot of people would get sick and/or die from the resulting STD's.

Apples/Oranges. I am not suggesting that 50% get pulled off the market. I am suggesting the fix the problem faster than 4 years. And if a condom manufacturer found a problem, they would recall the product not tell you to finish with a blow job for four years to work around their issue.

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However, doing it all right now might just kill more people than it saves - so I can understand their reticence to do that.

Nonsense, people could decide to jump or not without an AAD. What we have now is a problem that is not totally defined and that could result in a misfire. And the company's solution does not address the potential misfire danger.

They had a misfire on a packing mat, they ASSUME that it can't happen in the air or on the plane. But they also ASSUMED that this would not happen and last I recall when they had a packing mat misfire on the C1 they grounded all the units till you could put a sleeve on the control unit.

Now they just tell you not to worry about it and that you have to apply their assumed workaround for up to 4 years.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[iobject 0]

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14/32000: 0.04375% -- Cypres units that have malfunctioned. (Check your math buddy)

Now by my math, a cypres malfunctioning is one hundred and seven times more likely than a toyota...

You are just being hysterical. Probability that your Cypres locks up is like 0.0004. Probability that You'll really need one fired is something like 0.00000X (pessimistic estimate: activations devided by the total number of jumps). Together those make a probability for You to actually die of it like 0.0000000000Y. By pushing the button before jump You just make it REALLY unlikely to happen during this particular jump. It is almost safe to say it is impossible for you to actually catch this malfunction at a 600 ft doing over 35 m/s.

With the Toyota You said there were 37 accidents. Do You know how many were dead?

Somebody with actual mathematical skills could come up with more precise numbers. The bottom line is you are paying 1500 to be "more safe". 100% reliability is like 0% fat. It's never 100% nor 0%. There is no Santa Claus :)