A consistent fault is being found in Falcon Altimeters

This really ****es me off because I put one of these in my aircraft on
Tuesday.

the guys locally are finding a consistent manufacturing fault in the
chinese made Falcon Altimeters.

the goss is that the altimeters are actually made internally with the
quality of a swiss watch. I'm told that in all other respects the
quality of their internal manufacture is pretty impressive.

the altimeters have two aneroid components, one is made of similar
metals and is the main pressure sensor, and gives no problems. the
other is a bimetal temperature compensation chamber/aneroid that is
silver one side and black the other. these are joined around the
periphery by some fusion process.

the problem is that this fusion gradually lets go and the chamber
leaks air eventually ceasing useful function.

the first indication of the fusion weld letting go is that the QNH
subscale needs to be readjusted/repositioned.
I'm not referring to pilot qnh adjustment here but the instrument tech
style adjustment of the subscale's relative position.

when the chamber weld has fully released the altimeter will read
around 8,000ft or 9,000ft at sea level.

the local instrument techs have found that the "repairable" Falcon
Altimeters are in fact not repairable at all. they are of sufficiently
different design that no other style of compensation mechanism can be
grafted on to the chinese mechanism to correct the fault and
replacement aneroids are not available at all through the distributor
chanels.

one of the guys has had 4 of the instruments stuff up in the last
year. he took the last one to the local instrument tech and had the
cause of the problem shown to him and a large box of stuffed
altimeters bought out from the back room all reading 8,000ft.

in an ideal world the manufacturer would correct the manufacturing
fault and go on to manufacture mark 2 altimeters without the fault,
then make available replacement aneroids so that the existing stuffed
altimeters could be fixed. but do the chinese even speak english??

this situation is a pity really because without the fault in the
fusion welding they would be a quality item.

ymmv
( which means in this instance that your altimeter may vary from mine
but they will all eventually read 8,000ft at sea level)

Stealth Pilot