Within the last weeks it has come to my attention that someone has been making and is selling clones of my boards. And yours, ToBSn, seems to be one of those. I'm in contact with a couple of members who purchased copies, which had been offered at another forum outside of GDIY. And occasionally, I have seen some of the clones showing up here in the Black Market again.
I was never asked for permission nor permitted the cloning of my PCBs, but I really hope they are electrically okay.
If you find out you have a clone and they are not okay, please don't blame me!From ToBSn's photo I can tell that the silkscreen looks slightly fuzzy and the solder pads seem somewhat irregular (maybe from scanning?!). But the most obvious difference is the rotation of R90 by 180 degrees (it's upside down) and one of the PCB manufacturer's imprints is in the free space around the output stage. Mine never were that way! Maybe the cloner deliberately rotated the resistor to be able to differentiate clone from original. This person must have had at least one original, as I've never sent out the Gerbers to anyone. And as I said before, the fine quality of my boards allowed for some abuse of the solder pads for testing around with different values. Obviously, wether this is also true for the clones can't be judged from a photo...
I have only ever offered the boards here on groupdiy and I will keep it that way. If you find these offered anywhere else and/or in larger quantities, they are most likely clones.
Just wanted to let you guys know. Take care.
