AV8R_Sed,
Interesting.......back in January I posted a question in this section of the List titled "Encoders" (I believe you responded to it), which was inspired by failures of two different Ak-350 encoders in our kitfox. The first one, purchased when our Kitfox was built went way out of calibration and could not be re-calibrated by my avionics shop. The second one was installed a bit less than 2 years ago and went out of calibration this winter (per my post of 1/2016). On the second one my shop was able to adjust the "low" setting to meet requirements. Both of the AK-350's I have had experience with were manufactured within the last 10 years. I know another list member had one that has held up for around 25 years - mileage varies.
What I am curious about, and what is not included in the FAA Unapproved Parts Notification on Ameri-King is if the failure to comply with the parts approval is a technical paperwork issue or flat out junk component parts used in the product that can affect performance and durability.
For the two encoders I had screw up - they failed in between two year periods for routine inspection.
Sincerely,
Dave S
Kitfox 7 Trigear
912ULS Warp drive
St Paul, MN