Mode Zero

Martin,

Somebody has copied your idea.

www.banggood.com/Lantian-Mini-High-Sens ... 47689.html

Shaun

Yeah, thanks. Phil told me on RC groups a while back. They've not just copied the idea - they've copied the complete design, including my code except that they've removed my 'ceptimus' start up message and replaced it with a 'Lantian' one.

Admittedly they have designed a decent PCB that mounts the oled display and the 2.4 GHz module on a PCB the same footprint as the oled display - and they've routed out the serial and programming pins of the Arduino chip to some pads where you can solder headers if you want to experiment by changing the sketch. The header pads are for smaller pins than we usually use on a 0.05 inch spacing, but they're better than nothing.

I got no credit or recognition from Lantian at all. I even had to spend my own money to buy one of their boards so that I could confirm that it was a copy of my design. I suppose I could go after them, but I think it would be a waste of my time and money.

I never expected to make any money from the design and I would advise people who want to have one now that it's probably easier and maybe even cheaper to just buy the Lantian one... but it would have been nice if Lantian had left my copyright message in, let me know that they were producing my design and maybe sent me a couple of free samples... then I would have been happy.

Get onto them , let them know they are selling stolen tech.
You may get some and the recognition due to you.

Shaun

Many years ago, some oriental types made a reproduction of the MicroMold Lark. It even had "designed by Peter Valentine" on the front of the box. Like Queen Victoria, Peter was not amused! I'm not sure if it was him or Roy Scott of MicroMold, but one of them sent a stiff "cease and desist" letter to the suppliers, telling them that if they tried to sell them anywhere in the civilised world, they'd be sued out of existence! It was never heard of again.

These days, unfortunately, the Chinese seem to have all the American's Dollars, and can pretty much do as they please....!

--
Pete

Shaun wrote: ↑25 May 2018, 18:33Get onto them , let them know they are selling stolen tech.

Its more an etiquette thing than stealing, Martin generously put his code in the public domain as open-source and they took advantage. Nothing really wrong with that, but they have breached a 'code of conduct' if you like - they should have acknowledged the author, and they should have made an effort to let Martin know what they were doing and to thank him for the code. Above all its extremely bad etiquette amongst programmers to change the authors name to your own, or to change a banner or bragscreen and thereby 'claim' the code. Poor show really and I hope it doesnt discourage Martin from posting his code.
Cheers
Phil
PS have you seen the HK 'dual receiver' adapter? that was mine, they produced theirs a couple of months after I posted it. Like Martin, I bought one to verify. I think its just how China operates.

Its more an etiquette thing than stealing,

A similar thing happened to that famous brand leader - Skyleader only very recently - some neer-do-well on this forum copied their latest hi-tech reeds system and didn't give Skyleader the merest mention of all the work they put into it - bad show too really.
Person should be banned from this forum I say - need to mention this to the moderator

Joking aside, some simple etiquette is all that is required to alleviate any opensource issues - at the very least, full recognition for the work involved and a couple of freebies is all it needs. I have a few choice words for Chinese companies like that - don't think I'd be buying their product - even though it IS cheaper.

TBH, a mention on RCGroups about this sort of thing would ensure a boycott I think.

Cheers

Neil

Neil
If you let me know who it was who copied that skyleader reeds set I’ll ban him )

Ron.