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Thread: "X" Prize - $1,000 Contest

  1. #21
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    X-Laser could just have kept quiet and copied the best design, without offering any incentive... I doubt any of us would have filed a patent application for our red moduleīs design.

    They are offering you money to help recover some of the costs... if you donīt like the offer, just donīt take it!

    They didnīt say "if you win. surrender your design to us, and nobody else will be allowed build it"

    Thatīs just silly...

    To be fair I think $1000 is nothing in this hobby, they should have offered more cash... but as I said... they didnīt even have to... they could just wait, watch and copy...

  2. #22
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    they could just wait, watch and copy...
    I thought the whole point of it was that they didn't have the time to do that?
    Frikkin Lasers
    http://www.frikkinlasers.co.uk

    You are using Bonetti's defense against me, ah?

    I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain.

  3. #23
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    updated with quad build in my previous post.
    BTW if you want a mechanical drawing off all the parts and the layout let me know.

  4. #24
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    Gentlemen,

    I have taken a small step back here to reflect on some of the feedback and while I must admit that I expected this notion to be met with a little more trust if not enthusiasm, I recognize that some of the terms were not clear. Let me clear that up and answer a few things directly.

    First, I never expected nor intended to stir up some of the issues here. For whatever part the lack of clarity in the terms played in that I apologize.

    Secondly, let me state directly that I never intended for X-Laser to solely and exclusively own every (or even some) of the red module designs in this community. As Marc notes, terms such as what we presented are very common for legal reasons which have nothing to do with malicious patenting or some other anti-competitive IP maneuver. The design is invented by the inventor... assigning a submissions content as property to the contest holder simply means that the contest holder can use the content.

    Thirdly, there has been some question as to whether or not $1,000 is adequate for some degree of ownership in the design. That is a matter of opinion - however considering that a submission does not limit the rights of the inventor to assign, use or license the design beyond the contest it would be illogical to offer the equivalent of the ‘market’ rate for the design (eg. ‘add a 0’) if for example we had developed it fully independently and owned it exclusively.

    I think $1,000 is a reasonable amount to spur innovation especially considering that it is an idea and all of the further integration with our products, prototyping after we make changes, etc. will still need to be done. AFTER the idea is fully formed and done it will still likely cost us $50,000 in direct expenses and outlays not counting overhead to get it to market. As such, any economic projections which assume 500% profit margins are hugely unrealistic. This is doubly true since they are based upon an assumption that we would be charging the same as everyone else which I already stated was not going to be the case.

    Fourth, there is the question of how we seeing this benefitting the community in the win-win-win. We see three ways:

    We would hope that the contest parameters and further conversations would lead to some new ideas and unleash some creativity on the existing designs thereby improving them and making them more flexible. Perhaps everyone would just submit as-is but part of the point was to incentivize improvements so as I say, we would hope improvements would happen. We expect that many of those designs would ultimately be shared with the community for the benefit of the communal dialogue... which is why we are all here.
    While it does come at a lower cost in currency and a higher cost in time, supporting the community’s efforts financially is undoubtedly beneficial. Someone would have a good chunk of change to put toward their work, their bills, etc. and for everyone else paypal debits a donation from us every month to support Spec and the forum.
    As I said previously, the POINT of this is to have a lower cost red solution that works well for most needs. Kvant makes some wonderful product... but it is expensive. Surely the hobbyist and semi-professional community would benefit from a well designed red solution manufactured with economies of scale.

    As a last though on this point, R&D costs have to be amortized into the cost of the product. The more we spend on R&D (and we have already spent a fair amount), the more the thing costs everyone in the end. That is part of the reason that I suspect we end up with a $3K red that only has maybe $1.5K in parts, labor and overhead. Will going this route save us R&D money? Absolutely, of course. It will also allow us to make the product affordable which is (per #3) good for nearly everyone. Will we make some money off of selling these? Perhaps... but not much and virtually all of it will go into R&D on the next project. Certainly we do not project anything in the ballpark of $250K as was thrown out there. I might even have to give back my “mr corporate guy” club card and secret decoder ring. =)

    Look, we have on several occasions entered into business relationships with folks in this community and never once have we taken a design in whole or in part without seeking a mutually agreeable compensation arrangement. In fact, one person told us that we could just HAVE a design after I offered a compensation arrangement and I later came back to him and told him that we would be putting HIM on the patent. I don’t believe that I/we have done anything to warrant the level of suspicion and mistrust that has come out in this thread. Integrity is paramount to us, and to me personally.

    Lastly, with regard to licensing and Dave’s point: this is a very reasonable choice for a manufacturer because you typically pay for only what you use. So why not use it? I HATE licensing especially for small batch manufacturing because there is always the question/concern about underreporting usage. To allay that concern, licensing arrangements typically include auditing provisions where the manufacturer hires a CPA to come in for a few days every quarter to pour over their books and certify the payment schedule. This is time consuming, expensive and still fraught with mistrust and hurt feelings. For these reasons I much prefer clean solutions which do not require auditing. I most cases I would rather spend the time and money to do R&D ourselves just to avoid piece based agreements.

    In any case, several people have contacted me directly and asked that I not rescind the offer. I made it and I will stick by it incorporating the above clarifications. If folks continue to feel that this is in some way inappropriate, we will take it offline. I would prefer to leave it here so that we can have a good, productive conversation (see community benefit #1 above).

  5. #25
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    One question - will/could this result in a finished OEM red head available to builders, or would you only use the design in your own finished products?
    I think the former is the way this competition would really benefit the wider community here.
    Frikkin Lasers
    http://www.frikkinlasers.co.uk

    You are using Bonetti's defense against me, ah?

    I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain.

  6. #26
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    +1 what Norty said
    http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/3985/laser.gif

    Doc's website

    The Health and Safety Act 1971

    Recklessly interfering with Darwin’s natural selection process, thereby extending the life cycle of dim-witted ignorami; thus perpetuating and magnifying the danger to us all, by enabling them to breed and walk amongst us, our children and loved ones.





  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by kiyoukan View Post
    updated with quad build in my previous post.
    BTW if you want a mechanical drawing off all the parts and the layout let me know.
    Unfortunately, the way you are intending on combining wont be very stable. I have a couple of reasons why, but I would rather not say here....
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  8. #28
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    What I'm curious about is the way you say 'we claim ownership of the design', yet you have no legal basis to enforce it.

    If someone posts a design of a quad red here with the specs you want and you award him/her the prize, you can have no way of controlling ownership of the IP (e.g. patents) because it was posted here, publicly, before and therefore it would be prior art.

    Also, it's impossible to have a degree of control over it since a lot of people on these boards are not US residents. Any 'ownership violation' would be out of jurisdiction.

    So any transfer of ownership of this knowledge would be, in all senses, a gentleman's agreement. There is no way to prevent the original creator from publishing his design in the public domain so anyone can build it.

  9. #29
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    mixedgas is offline Creaky Old Award Winning Bastard Technologist
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    "Its just 69 dollars Papa", "You won't get 69 cents from me Rose"

    Line from famous movie/musical about strippers, and Rose is a mom who is asking her dad for money to send her daughter off to a career. Rose's daughter ends up, well, doing something else.

    I'm divided on this one. PL and LPF contain many, many, many people who leach off the designs of others.


    I once had some one offer me money to copy the Lasorb. I know whats in a lasorb to a reasonable amount of certainty. Can I order the parts from the former cold war plant in a far, far, away place? Most likely not with my budget, no one wants to sell one offs. Nor do I speak the local language well enough to negotiate. Can I put together the packaging? No, not at hobby costs. I don't own a wire bonder. Do I fear his lawyers? YEP, YOU BETCHA!.

    I'm a open critic of BB, yet have a more then a modicum of respect for him. I'm not posting at what I know, because the laser industry, not just the show industry, NEEDs Lasorb. There is little innovation without PROFIT!

    So there are still people on this forum who belive there should be no secrets. Right down to wanting the source code of major laser show software. Why? They want what they do not have the resources or in most cases the talent to develop. Its greed and fantasy. I did it myself when I was very young. These folks also seem to have this undercurrent of thinking they should be able to tour with Roger Walters with 300$ worth of gear, and if they can't do it, its UNFAIR that others with more budget can.

    Its OK to dream, its OK to try. However if less time was spent on wishing and moaning, more time could be spent on doing.

    In reality, unless you already own the tooling and the machine shop, most of these tasks wont happen. Only one hobbyist ever published a closed loop galvo design that worked, and he spent about two years researching the problem. His design is NOT widely copied, even though its a fraction of the cost, and trivial to make. Why is it not produced? Well, the labor to do all the hand adjustments to get it working on each unit is not cost effective compared to the consistant body of a Cambridge clone. (See Note B)


    Most of the people here producing new designs either have their own business, or are leaching off their job at a machine shop, university, etc.
    Thats OK some times, technology has to spread. Many folks have bosses that would like to pay their employee more, but can't and don't mind if they do a little evening work.
    Universities don't mind if their grad students do a little playing around, if its NOT related to the day job. Why? Because they come back with skills that are beneficial to them as students.


    As far as the IP, its a BADGE of HONOR in the electrical engineering world to have your schematic posted in Electronic Design News or Electronic Design's Ideas For Design/Design Ideas pages, and all you get is 50$ or 250$ IF your schematic is published. Those schematics show up in compilations on DVD or on the internet. So many of them just will plain NOT work, if built as drawn, too. Hint, the key to this is having a day job where you get paid enough that your novel schematic is something that you can afford to give away.

    The Joule Thief is a case in point. One Russian guy publishes a design to power a led off a single cell. It started a world wide trend. He got 50$ for his effort. Yet only a few sites who have copied his design (And many if not most make it worse!) give him credit for his work. )


    The fellow who made a super efficient blocking oscillator with a LED clamp as a load is named Kaparnik, and I wonder some times how much he would have made if he got royalties from ever LED flashlight company that ever copied his design. On the other hand, he knows that if not carefullly implemented, it kills LEDs fast. It looks good on his resume, and in some parts of the world, it probably serves many people well who have only a few AA batteries per year for light.****

    So you can either be wealthy enough to be idealistic, or you can oppose this and be capitalistic.

    I have a lot of schematics and experience and some specialized parts in my basement that many PL/LPFers would give their right nut, if not their wife for. Its cost me tens of thousands of dollars over 20 years to develop that knowledge base. I feel obliged to share SOME of it, but since much of it is the collaborative work with others, those gems stay "redacted" or "trade secret" or "classified" Have you ever seen a pic of the sealing tool for the ion tubes or how to clean up tube cathodes? Nope. And you won't. Yet I share much of what I have learned. I can afford to, I'm most often employed in other areas. Laser is a low profit margin industry. Its often not worth my time to try to sell some of this stuff. Yet it was profitable for me to have it at one time.


    I did quite a few laser power supply repairs in my college days. I cannot say I am without sin, as I "Social Engineered" access to a copy of the schematic for one laser. It showed up in a unmarked envelope one day. The other, competing, brand was doing so good, they just SENT a copy on request, and said "publish it", and its in the FAQ. Downside. You could have the drawings, and if you did NOT work out how to the initial adjustments, you'd blow 150$ worth of parts EVERY time until you got it right. So I had to do SOME work to get it right. Thus I am not without sin, and few others of us here are "saints" in this matter.

    There may be some one out there who could use the 1000$ for the better good.

    So this sort of contest is common.

    What Dan forgot, is in these contests, you need to publish the winning design. That's whats missing.

    Some one out there may think 1000$ is worth it. It is their choice. If that is the case, who are all of you to judge?

    I personally think if you approached Dan with a technology he could reproduce and license, he'd buy it. How do I know? I tried.
    Give him some benefit of the doubt. You have to seek a balence between innovation, profit, and IP rights. Its NOT easy, and it depends on which chair you set in.

    There is no IP, no Magic, in any of the RED designs I've seen published here. Just much trial and error work. Just how "Novel" is a Galilean Telescope?


    Steve

    NOTE A:
    (Note for pointer dudes, the Joule Thief's 80 volt short spikes kill Laser Diodes, forget about it, It uses the fact that LEDs have HUGE dies that act as clamps, as a key to its operation. It may work for a few hours with a blue diode, but there are MUCH better solutions. If you can afford to waste a 79$ diode, your doing better then me!. Yes, it has only 4 parts and could easily fit in a 4 mm diameter case, but without regulation, IT WILL blow your laser diode at some time, at a rate much faster then a proper driver circuit. Pay the 20-35$ for a real driver.)
    Last edited by mixedgas; 01-22-2012 at 06:38.

  10. #30
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    I believe Steve's comments are spot on. The solution,publish the winning design, largely solves the concerns about intellectual property rights, community enlightenment and proper recognition. Furthermore, If there is sufficient interest to generate a number of runner-up designs or proof of concept examples then publish these also and the benefits will multiply. I think this open approach better matches the philosophy of an open forum.

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