DIY KITs - Survey

[T.Jackson]

Hi Adam,

Jaycar Electronics actual own the copyright to that project. Certain they would pursue legal action if an inferior (copied / similar) product became available. Some may argue that a similar product with some unique character would fall under the Creative Comms act. http://creativecommons.org/

I don't recommend doing a project like this and trying to sell it. The director of Jaycar is a very rich, powerful & highly persuasive man (From what I've heard). Not a good idea bud.

[bcd]

How about a PIC controlled binary clock?. Something that is a fun project, but also useful to learn binary? (Although most of them are actually BCD rather than true binary).

Good for beginners and nerdy enough for people like me !!!

Bill.

[T.Jackson]

How about a PIC controlled binary clock?. Something that is a fun project, but also useful to learn binary? (Although most of them are actually BCD rather than true binary).

Good for beginners and nerdy enough for people like me !!!

Bill.

Yeah - that could possibly be something interesting and even legal too. BCD - Binary Coded Decimal is as such binary. BCD is the binary equivalent of a decimal value. Binary is a base 2 number system wit LSB to the right and MSB to the left. 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 - these are the actual decimal weights of the bits. When a bit is set, in BCD, it's weight is added together with other set bits and their weights to form BCD.

[keithdoxey]

Hi Adam,

Jaycar Electronics actual own the copyright to that project. Certain they would pursue legal action if an inferior (copied / similar) product became available. Some may argue that a similar product with some unique character would fall under the Creative Comms act. http://creativecommons.org/

I don't recommend doing a project like this and trying to sell it. The director of Jaycar is a very rich, powerful & highly persuasive man (From what I've heard). Not a good idea bud.

There are already similar products in existance. The Broadcast Industry has used similar looking LED clocks for many years such as this one sold by Canford Audio

http://www.canford.co.uk/commerce/pr...oductid=58-782

The Broadcast clocks are generally slaved from a master time controller to ensure all displays are exactly the same but the general look of the Jaycar project isnt significantly different to those existing commercial products.

Reading the description of how the Jaycar kit animates the process of illuminating the next second LED would appear to be about the only unique aspect of their design.

Please note that I am not advocating that anyone should rip off someone elses design but pointing out the similar products can be developed by different people in different locations at the same time.

For many years TV stations have used graphics of clock with seconds appearing as the minute progresses.

Several years ago, Maplin published a design for an MSF controlled digital clock using a PIC and BiColour LED displays. If the MSF radio signal was absent the clock would keep time by its own crystal reference but the display would be red to indicate that it may not be totally accurate. When displaying the time received from the MSF radio signal the display was green.

[T.Jackson]

Yeah - still relatively hesitant to do it unless it had many unique features and looked miles apart. The Jaycar clock wacher's KIT is the only commercial KIT of its kind to my knowledge. All told, I"m lead to believe that it's actually not that popular. Not a failure but possibly not doing as well as expected. This is the impression that I get from Jaycar sales staff.

[RussMartin]

Oh, wow--wish I'd seen this thread sooner!

I tried doing True/False on the questions and couldn't; my answers aren't that simple. Like BobK, I've been in this a long, long time (he's got about 4 years on me). My first kit was a shortwave receiver, a Hallicrafters S-119K "Sky Buddy II" in 1963. (I still have it.) Lots of kits in those days--Heath and Knight were the big ones I remember. My first ham transmitter was a Heathkit DX-35.

I think a nifty (look that up, too!) product line to hit the kit market is the Elecraft stuff (http://www.elecraft.com/). High-end, but very nice.

Like Melanie, I do this stuff for a living, but I still putter around breadboarding stuff and buying the occasional kit. Unlike Melanie, I wouldn't classify the Heath line as "crap kits". They offered a balanced line, from the simple to the elaborate. There were a few duds, to be sure. But (for example) the Heathkit "Twoer" (one of two products--the other was the "Sixer"--generically called "lunchboxes" because of the handle on top) did more to put hams on 144 MHz (2 meters) than any other single product in history--and it did so without busting your wallet.

I think there's always a market for good, well-designed kits. I believe Velleman has demonstrated that, as has Ramsey (http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/hk/). Last year, I redesigned a product as a kit (http://www.i-zombie.com/pages/sc1201...controller.php). The biggest challenge was doing a decent instruction manual--it was unbelievably time-consuming!

Trent, it sounds like you're doing some market research. How about telling us more?

[T.Jackson]

Secretly, unbeknown to a lot of us, I think there's quite a few silent contenders on here doing exactly just that - market research. Conclusion with what I've seen so far; most people are extremely creative, each thriving on radical new wisdom of their very own. Any KIT that does much less than allows them to fuel this new insight would be a hard sell. Artistic drawing programs would be a good sell around here. I'm just as gifted, believe me when I say that I know what I'm talking about.

[T.Jackson]

Also, another observation - a graphical flowchart-based version of PBP would sell like a hotcake!