Open Metal Detector Project Charter

[hdphilip]

Designing, building, testing and selling the product is a lot of work. Well established businesses, spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop a new product and bring to the market. It would be foolish self-illusion for a single person to want to do that.

yup, thats the bottom line..... A hobbyist at best, may be able to produce a kit (PC board and a bag of parts), but with the modern technology used, even building the kit may be beyond the skill set of the weekend warrior.

So where my reward for building and experimenting?

Pressing the "post" button on my thread for some sort of experiment that I've done.

Because I wish share it with everyone,

Including all the metal detector companies.

And maybe if the metal detector companies like my idea, They will contact me!
(just pick up your local phone directory, look up hdphilip, that's with 1 "L" and call me)

Philip

now, excuse me, i need to get back to some software evaluation of target detection theories chudster helping me with....
all i can say is.... their so cool.....

[PATCHES JUNIOR]

I figure Minelab will be out of business in a few months. Thanks for your hard work. It is a shame you do not go after the LRL crew as hard.

[hdphilip]

if anything I'd be more concerned if mine labs recruited chudster to write their software..............

video in my thread in a little while

[Tinkerer]

I agree with Tinkerer, but ...

Why not all of us collaborate to develop the best metal detector on Geotech, TEM based, and OPEN SOURCE?
Because we want it all done AND most users have not sufficient knowledge, including me!

After all I'm willing to learn and test, to build pcb´s and to burn diodes. And the most important = Field Testing of prototypes in real field conditions.

AnyOne Is PointeD????

tj.malena

Field testing of the prototypes is certainly of extreme importance. I am glad to know that you are willing and able to do this.
When you speak of "the best metal detector", it is a bit more difficult.

The best detector for what purpose? Could you expand on that?

"build pcb´s and to burn diodes" This is another point that needs elucidation. What kind of PCB? Through hole or surface mount?

What testing equipment do you have? What are your lab capabilities?

There are many others like you. there is place for everybody in a design group, but the jobs allocated to each need to be tailored according to each ones capabilities.

Tinkerer

[Monolith]

Totally agree with Davor......quoted below:

"Buying time prior to setting up production? Just shut up and work on your production"

or in the forums interest and all involved, work towards a working product, tested in the field and confirmed. Maybe a time comes when one just keeps his ideas to himself. The limitations or set backs of late has put a sour note, but should not be a negative and deterring factor in pursuing your main goal or interest.

Sid

"Buying time prior to setting up production?" Whom are we trying to fool here. Do you have any idea how many millions of dollars it needs to enter into the competitive metal detector manufacturing business?
More likely, a joint developed design could be sold to a manufacturer. At what price? If it takes several hundred thousand dollars to develop a new design, how much would a manufacturer pay for a proven and tested finished design? How much would the design group need to spend on its design? Design is mostly many hours of work. If we could divide 10,000 hours of work between a group of 20 and accomplish these hours in one year, it would mean about 10 hours average for each group member, per week. That looks feasible, but would need very much motivation.

Monolith

[chudster]

"Buying time prior to setting up production?" Whom are we trying to fool here. Do you have any idea how many millions of dollars it needs to enter into the competitive metal detector manufacturing business?
More likely, a joint developed design could be sold to a manufacturer. At what price? If it takes several hundred thousand dollars to develop a new design, how much would a manufacturer pay for a proven and tested finished design? How much would the design group need to spend on its design? Design is mostly many hours of work. If we could divide 10,000 hours of work between a group of 20 and accomplish these hours in one year, it would mean about 10 hours average for each group member, per week. That looks feasible, but would need very much motivation.

Monolith

Monolith,

I respect your view and would like to know more. You are right about the realities of entering production. Essentially what you are saying is that we are a band of part timers. We don't have a cohesive design methodology and it seems most people like it that way or it would be too much like work. No deadlines and no pressure and no direction. Especially no discipline to draw a line in the sand and make something in favour of tinkering for the next improvement. If someone became El Capitan and drew up a project plan and started giving everyone tasks with deadlines, would none be met and people would do what they like instead? Its not a matter of lack of brains or talent, but after reading your post and considering IBGold's comments, it makes me question if we could organise to produce a professional detector design or designs.

On the other hand, there are lots of talented people, if we could band together and work effectively, there is no reason why we could not turn out designs like the Arduino folks. They have a sense of purpose and they have changed the world with electronic designs with some structure and discipline.

Leaving the market entry problem aside, I am sure interested in what other folks think. Do we have what it takes to come up with a professional design or designs? Can a lone person do it or what is the critical mass, knowledge and behaviours for a successful team? A 'charter' must support those.

Chudster

[andyt]

Have to say reading this thread is confusing. I tried reading the other thread to find out what had allegedly been infringed but could not work it out!

If I may just put my oar in!

You can set up a group of full disclosure open source...that you can do...won't stop people taking action if the open source is potentially their IP though. Think android, java, linux.

If you want to own something, have the IP, you have no choice but to sign every member up to a non disclosure agreement. If you don't you cannot patent your ideas as they will have be subject to pre-disclosure. Even if you have a great idea that you want to sell to a metal detector manufacturer you will need everyone signed up to NDA. Then if you dont go straight for a patent, you will have to sign an NDA with a metal detector manufacturer to discuss your IP (they may not want to do this in case their developments overlap yours and cause legal issues).

Frankly us engineers are a proud lot. The engineers from a brand metal detector company will not think they can take your whole design ready for manufacture, they will assume a lot of polishing is required. Frankly thats what they do...so let them do it. If you want to sell it to a metal detecting company put it in any old box and make sure the electronics work...sell them that. If they like it, they will polish it and put it in a nice shiny box.

If you want to make a product and you dont want to get a big cash investor, then target a niche market. You need something that the big guys will not worry about because its not a big market. They are more likely to leave you alone as the size of the market is not worth worrying about. (assuming they dont think you are infringing their IP, in which case they may feel they have to protect it). Small target market means your small band will be able to sell into it without needing huge marketing and distribution. Kits are by their nature a niche market, most people dont want to bother assembling (and when they do they expect it to be priced little more than the cost of the parts) and so its not a market the big guys are interested in.

In short, if you want to open everything and give away the knowledge thats great. If you dont and really want to commercialise using a group of people across the net you must have NDAs in place as a minimum. The only guy thats could avoid their input being copied is the firmware guy if he insists on programming (and blowing the protection fuse) in each micro. If you then release a product without further protection, well you guys know from this site...someone will just draw a circuit from the PCB.

If you want to commercialise, NDAs are required as the absolute minimum.

At the start of this thread it seemed to be about open source...but it now seems to be about making money. Open IP is easy...just publish it and hope nobody thinks you have published their IP. If you want to make money from IP think NDAs, real ones signed by each participant. If you want to sell niche product and people are putting grunt work in (not special IP work) then you can do that as a team if you can control people...until you decide who gets the rewards (what about that guy that did hardly anything...should he get a fair share?).

I once was talking to a local coordinator for a charity, I suggested it was easy to organise the staff because they were there as volunteers and wanted to be there. He said it was much worse, when you pay people you can tell them to do it or lose their job. When they are volunteers you have to massage their egos and they do what they like.

[tjmlena]

Field testing of the prototypes is certainly of extreme importance. I am glad to know that you are willing and able to do this.
When you speak of "the best metal detector", it is a bit more difficult.

The best detector for what purpose? Could you expand on that?

"build pcb´s and to burn diodes" This is another point that needs elucidation. What kind of PCB? Through hole or surface mount?

What testing equipment do you have? What are your lab capabilities?

There are many others like you. there is place for everybody in a design group, but the jobs allocated to each need to be tailored according to each ones capabilities.

Tinkerer

Hi Tinkerer.
Remind everyone that I'm new to metal detector world.
Im not talking about specific detector when say best metal detector, but at least one detector similar or better than commercial units.
As mentioned in previous posts several units for different tasks......
2nd point: I have no laboratory but I have an associate with electronic workshop/studio with oscilloscope etc.... and Im thinking to buy 1 logic analyzer and +1 soldering station + 1 pcb insulator.
About field testing, no problems, I can do it all day long. I have too much spare time.

Count me in.

[andyt]

...
2nd point: I have no laboratory but I have an associate with electronic workshop/studio with oscilloscope etc.... and Im thinking to buy 1 logic analyzer and +1 soldering station + 1 pcb insulator.
Count me in.

Hi tjmlena
Dont buy a logic analyzer, they are rarely used unless you have a complex digital board, buy your own oscilloscope.
Andy

[hdphilip]

sometimes logic analyzers are good to have when you want to see some good measurements, unless you have a expensive digital oscilloscope

philip

[andyt]

sometimes logic analyzers are good to have when you want to see some good measurements, unless you have a expensive digital oscilloscope

philip

Would you buy one before an oscilloscope though Philip? I know which one I would rather have if I could only have one.

[Davor]

...
If you want to commercialise, NDAs are required as the absolute minimum.
...
When they are volunteers you have to massage their egos and they do what they like.

No offense, but I think we all are well past the powerpoint and NDAs, and especially playing ball with the "big players". They are in the game, let them have it.

As for production, there is no such thing as a large scale production in metal detectors business. The largest manufacturers are, well, manufacturers, as in manually assembling the bits and pieces to a modest quantity of detectors per day. They all pot their own coils and they all test them in a small scale, and the whole message they send to the rest of the world of electronics is HEY - IT WORKS!!! YOU CAN MAKE NICE THINGS IN THE WEST TOO.

Does it mean that I will produce my own 6 lines of sexy detectors in polished boxes and bollocks manuals, and hope for knocking down sales of a "big" manufacturer? For Pits sake no! Have you ever seen a formula 1 car on sale in a shop? Or the company that backs it up making big money on such product? Usually such toys are more likely to ruin their mentors. Such marketing models may work in fashion business, but not elsewhere.

As for design, only three words: off the shelf. Cheapest, totally predictable, and come in different colours too. Why overdo it?

I can make a single unit for my own pleasure, or one unit per month at my hobby pace to sell a fellow detectorist with modest provision, and perhaps 10 units if pushed hard. So does everyone else. Will it threat the big market players? I don't think so, but it could keep my hobby afloat.

[Tinkerer]

Keeping the hobby afloat, might be the common denominator of most of the members of the forum.

Tinkerer

[andyt]

No offense, but I think we all are well past the powerpoint and NDAs, and especially playing ball with the "big players". They are in the game, let them have it.

As for production, there is no such thing as a large scale production in metal detectors business. The largest manufacturers are, well, manufacturers, as in manually assembling the bits and pieces to a modest quantity of detectors per day. They all pot their own coils and they all test them in a small scale, and the whole message they send to the rest of the world of electronics is HEY - IT WORKS!!! YOU CAN MAKE NICE THINGS IN THE WEST TOO.

Does it mean that I will produce my own 6 lines of sexy detectors in polished boxes and bollocks manuals, and hope for knocking down sales of a "big" manufacturer? For Pits sake no! Have you ever seen a formula 1 car on sale in a shop? Or the company that backs it up making big money on such product? Usually such toys are more likely to ruin their mentors. Such marketing models may work in fashion business, but not elsewhere.

As for design, only three words: off the shelf. Cheapest, totally predictable, and come in different colours too. Why overdo it?

I can make a single unit for my own pleasure, or one unit per month at my hobby pace to sell a fellow detectorist with modest provision, and perhaps 10 units if pushed hard. So does everyone else. Will it threat the big market players? I don't think so, but it could keep my hobby afloat.

No offense taken from here I understand I have jumped into this thread at my peril! But if you don't have NDAs and you have shared information that affects your ability to patent...which is what I was trying to stress. You can still make things without patents, but to make things that several people have contributed to, make a profit...you also need some upfront understanding of the sharing of profits.
I design electronics products which I have licensed, sold out right and sold through my company. I just hoped to share a little bit of my experience with playing with the big companies and surviving as a small player with some smaller products.

And you have described your niche market

Oh one parting word... if you ever want to sell through distribution selling the cheapest of a number of competitors is a trap. I tried selling a product that was as good and half the price of the competition but the distributors would not touch it despite great magazine reviews and customer reviews on the net. They basically felt that they made twice the profit on my competitors product and they would have to work twice as hard to sell twice the number of my product to get the same profit. My competitors made a lot more money than me, spent it on advertising and awareness and continued to grow their distributor network.

Direct sales are still good though!!! :P

[Carl-NC]

andyt and Davor make some good points. You can either develop in the public domain as has largely been the model for Geotech, or you can all sign an NDA and develop privately, with the hope of making something off the end result. We tried the latter (here on Geotech) without success. There were several reasons but the bottom line was lack of cohesion.

Forget about any kind of large scale self-production. You can't do it. Don't even try. Either find a niche market and make yourself comfortable with selling a few units a month, or find a manufacturer to partner with. Nexus, Red Heat, and Blisstool are examples of the former. Do the latter if you want to make more money. If you go for a partnership get a solid concept working well. Don't worry about the interface (Blisstool has, what, 13 knobs/switches?) or the looks. The partner company will get it the rest of the way. Just make it perform.

- Carl