My Aveo Engineering Experience and Update

Disclaimer: I do not work for Aveo nor am I affiliated in anyway to the company, employees, or ownership! I want to provide everyone interested an update for Aveo since they aren't active on VAF and admittedly have poor customer service / communication to the masses. Please don't flame me, hopefully this will help some folks out, as there have been quite a bit of negative comments that aren't representative of the whole story.

I have been a fan of Aveo for five years now since the first time I started researching a RV build. It seems like I've also been waiting that long for their ZipTip wingtips with integrated lights. I spoke to them at Sun 'N Fun in 2013 and placed my order for a set and have yet to get them. There have been a lot of rumors and disgruntled customers since then that I won't get into, but I do want to provide some details on my interactions with them.

Over the past year, I've been in regular contact with Damien, their do-it-all guy in Florida. Damien has been very quick to respond and very forth coming with information and product status to me. And while it seems a lot of the issues are beyond his control, he's doing his best to try to run the front and back shops at Aveo while getting more employees on board.

Aveo changed their ZipTip design about two years ago to better their product including changing the LED heat sinks and a newly engineered board. They also worked to integrate a rear facing white LED as a rear position light in each wingtip. They are now getting all of the molds set up for US production of these tips and are about finished with the 10 mold (more on that in a few). During this time, they were also working on the certified of our GA world, with Cessna and some Piper aircraft designs receiving TSO certification.

However, their production suffered as a hyped expansion did not pan out and there are still only a small number of employees with limited US production at this point. All of the engineering is happening back in the Czech Republic, and some of the production is shipped over with new molds making lead times long.

Damien recently received the old style molds for the RV-10 and called me to see if I'd like to get a set of tips now or wait for the new style molds to arrive. After talking to him, I decided I could wait a little longer and go for the new style. He asked me to do a bit of engineering assistance for them and shipped me a full size tip profile to match up with my wing so they could ensure the right profile on the new mold. I spent some time on the phone and took a lot of pictures and measurements for him and even talked with the Czech engineer on a certain measurement they needed.

The 10 molds will be shipped over now in the next month or so along with a few production units. Moving forward, they will be produced in the US.

Damien currently has sets for the RV-4, 6, 7, 8, and F1 with the new design and rear position lights in stock. He's also made a few sets of custom tips out of carbon Kevlar material for an aerobatic 8 with extended range tips.

This is an excerpt from an email from Damien with his contact information: "I work in the main office (386) 225-4779 ([email protected]) around the corner each morning and handle sales and warranty service and general inquiries parts ordering etc., take lunch and work in the composite shop each afternoon till 6 where I can be reached by company cell at (631) 935-8483."

Now, I'll be the first to admit that Aveo has some awesome products out there that they have made extremely difficult and frustrating to purchase. Some have not been happy with customer service and worry about longevity / warranty service down the road. I can't comment on that, but did want to pass this info along to folks who are still interested in their products but may not be up to speed with what's going on. I've given them plenty of feedback about their go-to-market strategy and think that the leadership will have to make the changes needed to improve their sales side of their business. I have spoken to the owner several times and provided this feedback. I honestly feel he received it well and was open to hearing real customer issues. My opinion is that they are trying to nail down a lot of certified products to get the cash coming in to fund further growth and finish the products that are development for smaller markets like ours.

I will say that Damien has been fantastic to work with and really is driven to make folks like us in the EAB world happy and promote Aveo at the same time. I'd encourage anyone that needs info to contact Damien.

Finally, there are a few pictures of their facility in Palm Coast with the finished tips hanging on the wall posted in this thread. I have also attached a picture of my wing with the profile to finalize the new 10 profile.



I hope this info helps out others like me that are still excited about having their product flying on their planes. I'll certainly try to keep folks updated as I get word as well.

complete Aveo Tips Rv4,6,7,8

I have gotten two sets of Ziptips from Aveo Engeerings and They DO Not FIT!

The problem on both sets of tips are that they are 7/16 " short on the top side joggle.( Where the tip is recessed to under the skin. ) I have measured the Vans tips and they are correct but the Aveo Tips are not.

They Claim that thay have sold over 25 sets of the tips and no, I say No one has had a problem.. I have been dealing with these folks for 2 months now and I'm looking for any one that has got these tips and see If there are any fit problems.

Please let me know, I you have had problems with your tips fitting right.
Dennis McGraw
Frustrated RV4 Builder.
901-351-2992

Tips have arrived!

Good news, everyone! Aveo has delivered my ZipTips Premier LED wingtips! Damien got them to me last week and I immediately unboxed them and started drooling. For those that are waiting, here's the status from Damien this morning: My set are a beta set, as I did a lot of the templating work for their master molds over the past several months, including working directly with the factory on the profile of the 10/14 wing. Aveo wanted to make sure these fit well before sending the mold over to Aveo Florida. Now that I've confirmed their fit and sent some feedback to them, the molds will be shipped by the end of the year and Damien can start cranking these out for the other folks on the waiting list. I'm really hoping they start getting these in folks' hands, as I've personally waited three years for them. I've remained very vocal and honest with Damien and Christian about their promises, and made it clear that builders want to see product, not just promises.

Overall, I'm really impressed with the quality of the product. The fiberglass is hands down better than Van's tips both inside and out (I have an old wing kit, so it may have improved). The light modules themselves are lightweight, but look great and have a well-engineered mounting system allowing for aiming adjustment. The lens integration with the tips is really nice and allows for some aiming room for the light modules. The rear position / strobe light integration is really cool. I was worried that it'd be really think or chunky looking but it turned out really nice. The wiring is made easy with a CPC connector that mounts to the unit. The cavity cover plate on the bottom side is well molded and should install easily with a few screws and nut plates. The access it gives is plenty of room to remove the whole module which is good in case you have an issue with a lamp.

The light modules are extremely bright!!!! The LED's all have beefy heat sinks and after 20 minutes with no airflow, the sinks were hot to the touch, but not scorching. The lamps put out some heat but the lens was only warm. I have no doubt in flying conditions, heat will be no factor. Visibility of the lights won't be an issue either, they really are bright and provide a great field of view.

Now, to give an honest review, not everything is perfect. Keeping in mind, these are pre-production units, I gave Aveo some feedback they are already reacting to before moving into full swing. The light modules themselves were designed before the rear lights were around. Thus the housings had to be cut open for additional wiring to be soldered on. The factory did not close the housings with silicone like they were supposed to, so those flopped around in the light cavity during shipping. One side of the strobe reflectors also came unglued and were found in the cavity. It was an easy fix to epoxy them on, but for the price, I shouldn't have to do anything to these other than install. Finally, the wiring diagram that is online is still V1 and thus I had to wait a few days for an updated diagram just to bench test them. Damien and Christian have both responded to me about the feedback and have fixes already working in place.

Here are some pictures out of the box. More to come. I'm attaching these using the hinge method, so will be working on that over the next couple of weeks and will post some progress along the way.

Bench Testing

I got the updated wiring diagram and set to work doing a little bench testing. Damien made up a pigtail CPC for each unit, but unfortunately one row of wires were reversed, thus nothing really worked. After I fixed that, it was straight forward and I proceeded to blind myself by looking at the landing light as I touched the battery like an idiot.

These were taken outside in my back yard. The trees in the at the end of the yard are about 50-60 yards away. I forgot to get a picture of the taxi light only. It was dimmer and more of a flood than beam, but I think it's going to be more than adequate for it's role.

Nav:


Nav and Taxi:


Nav, Strobe, and Landing:


Landing view:


Pos and Rear Strobe:


The strobes are blinding, to say the least. You will certainly be seen at night with these things! Once I tested all functions of both units, I sealed up the modules and painted the inside of the cavities with black rattle can paint. Next up is mounting them to the wings.

Videos

Here are two clips of the nav and strobes. The iPhone sucks at night video, so the landing lights and taxi lights didn't really show up well on the video.

http://www.n127tl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Nav-Pos-Strobe.mov

http://www.n127tl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Nav-and-Pos.mov

Test fitting

I am mounting my tips using the hidden hinge method, so step one is to still trim down the flange and use the wing skin as a template for the first holes drilled into the tip. Unfortunately, there was a snag. After measuring three times and cutting once, I still mis-measured and didn't realize there was an interference issue with the mounting pin for the light module and the wing rib.



I'm not sure how these tips will reach customers, as mine already had the cavities molded in. However, another VAF'er received his separate. Either way, I did not want to drill a hole in my rib so elected to just use the flange as is and will fill in the void once the mounting is complete. That meant I had to re-glass the flange portion I removed. Easy enough and I was back on track tonight.



The profile is darn near perfect. I had one hole that cause the wing skin to ripple just a tad, and I think I can massage the skin and tip to get them to agree a bit better. I measured fifty times and cut the aileron clearance out right the first time on both tips.




Still waiting on the hinges from ACS, but at this point they are just like the stock tips. Overall the fit and finish are very good and the feedback on the light cavity interfering was taken immediately by Damien and Aveo. It won't be an issue on the production tips.

If anyone needs more detail or photos, just shoot me a message and I'll be happy to help. Four years, I've been waiting for these. Luckily, it did not delay my build and I'm really happy I held out hope!

Tip Buckets

I glad your tips fit good. I got my 3rd set in after 7 months and they fit the wing profile good. The light buckets are a different story, It had to be filled 1/8 to 1/4 in some places. The buckets seemed to be to little.
I made them work but it could have been better. Also the Led modules where bad, the position lights did not work. They did send me a new set into 3 days after calling them.

I'm putting these on a harmon rocket.

Dennis

Dennis, good to hear that you finally got a product. It is frustrating, I know. I think they are finally getting the kinks worked out on these, though. And I know these first sets are still prototypes, somewhat, as my modules were built before the rear strobes were designed.

I'm busy trying to join my fuselage sections together around the spar then going to dive into the tips.

Tim, Could you please go back to your first post and re-size the photo. You have a created an interesting post. But it is so painful to scan left and right to read the material. If you reduce the size of the first photo as mentioned in Doug's instructions for posting photos, the print on this entire page will automatically be corrected.


CLK on Insert Pics top left of this page. "Making the image around 900 pixels wide or less preserves the proper word wrapping best on most monitors." Your picture is 2,448px × 3,264px.

What is the price of these lights/wingtips? I'm assuming you could offset it by not getting the vans tips.

Damien is great just prepare to be patient

What, you didn't want to see the individual atoms that made up that cardboard template?

Man, resizing is a pain! I'll make sure to get them the right size the first time. I was having issues with huge pictures on my build log and fixed that too. Hopefully it looks better now. Are they showing up sideways for anyone?

Yup Damien is great and way overworked / under appreciated. Awesome product, but kind of frustrating. They are improving, from what I've heard from others, though.

Prices for the tips as of the middle of last year are below:



You may want to call them to make sure they haven't changed, but Damien hasn't mentioned any changes.

Wiring diagram as well:

price

About 3400.00

I emailed Damien a week or so ago. He replied quickly and the price is still 2990 for an rv7 with the rear facing lights included.

I am seriously considering these, and leaving out the stock wing tips when I order my wings later this month.

ziptip access panel.

Tim, I just received ziptips from Aveo Engineering for an RV-7. The access panel came molded to the tips and will have to be cut out. Did you receive separate access panels with the kit or will you have to fabricate them?

Frank
RV-7 in work