ethical dilemma using demo boards from manufacturer

[hazel]

Hello everybody!

It's been a long time since i'm thinking about a new audio processor for my personal use and joy of building  but it involves hard PCB design, carefully component placement, etc... i built pedals, tube amps and preamps from kits successfully in the past but this would be a major project that can finish my patience due to my lack of electronics knowledge

The DILEMMA: manufacturer sells a DEMO BOARD with everything i need to run my basic idea and have spare place for experimentation/upgrade. I know it's not DIY at all but, would this be ethical?

Maybe am just a fool for asking and some people would say "c'mon man, get the boards" but a little voice inside me says "i'm not sure this would be right, you should spend months or maybe a year or two designing, debugging, soldering, etc..."

What do you think about?

 

[warpie]

It depends on what level of satisfaction you are aiming for. 
Personally I'd try to make it all myself.

 

[erikb1971]

why don't you ask them if it is ethical? They might surprise you!

 

[hazel]

It depends on what level of satisfaction you are aiming for. 
Personally I'd try to make it all myself.

I always wanted to have necessary skills to design audio gear by myself but i decided to get practical and learn by soldering and putting together kits (from easy bass pedals to tube circuits).
I felt sooooo good in the past with kits running at first time that i don't want to get frustrated with this project, not because i don't want to learn, but i don't have debugging knowledge if something goes wrong
I lack on materials (no PCB design, no PCB etching) and knowledge to translate complete schematic to PCB, if i go this way i'd just copy schematic into breadboard with the high risk of shorts, noises, etc...

why don't you ask them if it is ethical? They might surprise you!

WOW! that's so simple question i would never guess!

 

[Ptownkid]

I don't think this is a question of ethics at all...but maybe I'm missing something. If it's simply for personal use then the question of whether or not to use the demo boards instead of designing them is entirely dependent on your goals and nothing more.

 

[hazel]

I don't think this is a question of ethics at all...but maybe I'm missing something. If it's simply for personal use then the question of whether or not to use the demo boards instead of designing them is entirely dependent on your goals and nothing more.

I'm afraid you're not missing anything, it's for personal use.

My goal is being able to build it and make it work but i'm realistic, knowledge is limited, my soldering is quite good but i have no idea about PCB design, etching, debugging. I'm not a DIY guy but a KIT one

All of you started with kits or DIYing??

 

[Rochey]

I think it's a question of it you paid for it or not. Many eval boards are given (for free) to potential customers to aid with evaluation of a product, with the aim of purchasing quantity of them for production.

If you deceived the manufacturer with claims of volume production, then I would consider you in ethical greyland.

If, however, you received the board as a pass-me-on from another person, then the responsibility really is on them.

You could always clear your guilt by sharing any software/skills developed with the board on a blog, or on the manufacturers forums. That's one thing that every manufacturer is lacking - real world developed software/application knowledge.

 

[hazel]

I think it's a question of it you paid for it or not. Many eval boards are given (for free) to potential customers to aid with evaluation of a product, with the aim of purchasing quantity of them for production.

If you deceived the manufacturer with claims of volume production, then I would consider you in ethical greyland.

If, however, you received the board as a pass-me-on from another person, then the responsibility really is on them.

You could always clear your guilt by sharing any software/skills developed with the board on a blog, or on the manufacturers forums. That's one thing that every manufacturer is lacking - real world developed software/application knowledge.

that's a good point Rochey!

manufacturer sells evaluation boards so i'm not stealing GROUPDIY would be a great place to open a thread/blog to show my project and open it to suggestions and encourage people

 

[Rochey]

If you paid the manufacturer for the board, you can do whatever you like with it.
We have some customers (I work for an IC manufacturer) that buy our complete EVM's and drop them into final products.
They don't have to deal with any of the manufacturing issues for the board then.

However, I can't help feeling that it'd be easier for them to ask us for the design files of the Eval boards. I think we'd gladly give the design files away, if it sold more parts!

 

[hazel]

We have some customers that buy our complete EVM's and drop them into final products.

really??

this statement answered my question

do you think it's a good idea to explain this to manufacturer or it's the kind of mails that IC companies read and think "oh sh** another DIYer from groupdiy"?

 

[buildafriend]

My mentor smacked me in front a of circuit simulator, gave me list of schematic symbols and a simple schematic, and said go. It was a train wreck. Every mistake I make is a lesson.

For personal use I don't think what you do with a board matters. To take a design and resell it and say you designed it.. that might be a little bit un-ethical.

I've seen board designers say if you use their board and sell the finished product to give a cut of the profit to them.

 

[Rochey]

it's the kind of mails that IC companies read and think "oh sh** another DIYer from groupdiy"?

No comment.

 

[hazel]

it's the kind of mails that IC companies read and think "oh sh** another DIYer from groupdiy"?

No comment.

LOL

i'll write a mail to manufacturer

 

[Ptownkid]

All of you started with kits or DIYing??

I imagine most people definitely start with kits...there is no shame in that as long as you learn something along the way. Even then, who is anyone else to say what someone should or should not get from a hobby or how they should go about doing it? Make it what YOU want it to be and forget what anyone else thinks.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Demo boards are made exactly to proliferate new design-ins. If you buy the demo board from the manufacturer, you paid for it and it is yours to use. I have bought a few demo boards when I was teaching myself embedded design, and it save me a lot of grief. If a picture is worth a thousand words, and working demo is worth even more.

I haven't seen any demo boards that were remotely close to usable production designs, but if you can make it do what your want, and you came upon it honestly, I see no ethical problem.

I have mixed feelings about how manufacturers manage such programs.. back when I managed an engineering group for a decent sized company these reps were tripping over themselves to get me whatever my heart desired. Now as small company I don't get the time of day. Ironically when I designed a digital meter for a friends console company, they got the rep visits from the chip maker and offers of free sh**, me nada...

Using the odd demo board for DIY is better than it collecting dust on some busy engineer's shelf...

JR

 

[Rochey]

Using the odd demo board for DIY is better than it collecting dust on some busy engineer's shelf...

Nothing annoys me more than eval boards gathering dust.

Actually, one thing does... SAles guys using eval boards to get meetings. "hey, I'm in town and I have a blah-blah-blah eval board, I think it'd be interesting to you... wanna meet?".

Thanks, that meeting just cost us $500.

 

[volker]

I really don't understand what exactly your dilemma is. A demo board is meant to be used, obviously. It's meant to make everything easier, so you don't have to do the pcb design yourself and you won't have to build it. Especially in a mixed-signal design, there are always some things that could go wrong during those steps, so the manufacturer provides a plug and play solution so you don't have to bother. What do you think is the reason they let you have it? I don't see how ethics have anything to do with it.

In terms of DIY spirit, I also don't see a problem. The pcb design for a project of that kind has to be flawless, of course, but that is taken as given. You won't get an award for a working design, it only provides the ground work. The place you have to put your creative mind into is the software. Thinking differently, you could always go back step by step until you produce every tiniest bit yourself, but there is not much point to that. Just ask yourself, where is your time better invested for a successful outcome? Do a task that is already fulfilled, with the possiblity of producing something inferior, or start right where the rubber meets the road.

 

[hazel]

In terms of DIY spirit, I also don't see a problem.......
Just ask yourself, where is your time better invested for a successful outcome? Do a task that is already fulfilled, with the possiblity of producing something inferior, or start right where the rubber meets the road.

that's what i think since i opened this thread Volker

My dilemma came because i didn't know the leitmotiv of DEMO BOARDS, as said above i came from AUDIO KITS, where you purchase an all-in-one-puzzle-like audio gear.

Now that i'm entering into DIY i see DEMO BOARDS as prototyping, not as a half-finished product

I haven't seen any demo boards that were remotely close to usable production designs

Now i'm just scared about what you said. I don't want to make profit of it, just DIY fun and learning but i don't want it to sound like crap.

Do you think IC manufacturers publish circuits that don't show 100% capabilities of their products?

 

[JohnRoberts]

Using the odd demo board for DIY is better than it collecting dust on some busy engineer's shelf...

Nothing annoys me more than eval boards gathering dust.

Actually, one thing does... SAles guys using eval boards to get meetings. "hey, I'm in town and I have a blah-blah-blah eval board, I think it'd be interesting to you... wanna meet?".

Thanks, that meeting just cost us $500.

You don't want to get me started on this subject... 95% of the time sales reps are a complete waste of engineering department time.

I recall one time a sales rep was taking several engineers out to lunch, and Hartley the owner of the company walked by. The rep invited him to lunch and Hartley said no, " I can't make it but you could give me the $15..".  ;D  There is a reason pretty women are the most successful reps dealing with typically male engineers.

I have experienced way too many dog and pony shows where a major company sends headquarters people and FAEs out to visit the customer and ask an assembled team of engineers what do they want. But this is all a pretense to do a hard sell of whatever ICs they have in their cupboard to sell. After a few years of asking them for the same things with no evidence that the requests registered, you stop asking.

Now thanks to the internet, there is no longer much need for the bookshelves full of IC data manuals, in fact, not much need for reps to serve as primary company contacts, while I guess the reps could still serve as filters or gate keepers to identify which sample requests are from hobbyist posers and which are established companies.

FWIW I didn't like designing in new parts that I couldn't get in quantity through distribution, I've been burned before buy a major saying a new part would be available, and it wasn't.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

My dilemma came because i didn't know the leitmotiv of DEMO BOARDS, as said above i came from AUDIO KITS, where you purchase an all-in-one-puzzle-like audio gear.

I used to sell kits... hopefully not exactly a puzzle, while some instructions are better than others.

Now that i'm entering into DIY i see DEMO BOARDS as prototyping, not as a half-finished product

Showcase for the IC.. So it should work well at it's intended task. One unfortunate reality is that the IC manufacturer is an expert at ICs more than expert at audio. While hopefully they know more than a little about audio too.

I haven't seen any demo boards that were remotely close to usable production designs

Now i'm just scared about what you said. I don't want to make profit of it, just DIY fun and learning but i don't want it to sound like crap.

Do you think IC manufacturers publish circuits that don't show 100% capabilities of their products?

No, the IC maker wants to show the product in it's best light. If anything they will use parts because they manufacture them too, so design will not be the most cost effective.

I recall one apparent design flaw in a published application note (not a demo board) that a well known kit designer (not me) copied pretty much verbatim in a kit design he published.  The mistake was to substitute an opamp in place of a comparator, generally a harmless swap, but in this case the input bias current from the old school bipolar opamp created a DC current term at a sensitive input  node of a compander IC. Real comparators are optimized for low input bias and offset current, among other things. I suspect the application note substituted the opamp into the design because they didn't sell a comparator so they wanted to make the application note using all their brand ICs.

Relax, I see few published designs that I wouldn't change..  that's just me (a personal problem)...

JR