I have been developing my own software platform over years.. I never forget; once, my business partner said: stop playing, start selling... I totally hear what you are covering. Much appreciated all the effort in making this video.
I wonder how much needs to be off-the shelf for this to be commercially viable. The CNC routed Brass housing made me recoil in cost. Stamped Metal Housing, standard metal thread for the center. Standardized injection-molded plastic for the insulating ring. The cheapest MCU and RGB led possible, like 1-10 cents cheap. I wonder what the final BOM cost was and how far it got from the "maximally viable cost"
Cool idea. I have toyed with the exact same thing from time to time. I might've gone the route of bare dies to avoid the ASIC, splitting it into a super-cheap MCU and some external flash. And in my ideas I have used automatic position detection so the parts know where they are and can receive a single shared digital data stream (avoiding the expense and complexity of the optical content coding). Plus the cost of rectifying AC is kind of high, so a DC-based system is probably just a hair cheaper. Anyway, the patent thing is critical to avoid being killed by Chinese competition, so your business partners in the project had the correct instincts on that one.
@@akiko009 Do they really though? Doesnt seem like it in the "Same old Korean shit" (an expression from the 90's music business) markets that are everywhere and even infiltratin legitimate businesses.
You remind me , my passion was to create and experiment things and I got very disappointed wen it came to patents . Very good and interesting video. Thanks
As someone who plays with pixels both as part of my business and as part of my Christmas obsession I watched this and both felt your pain and contemplated how I would do it myself. Personally I would have gone with a P10 matrix (or somewhat higher density) and programmed it via contact exposure. That however was only a microscopic issue. Loved the conductive surfaces used for the conductors and a bit sad that you didn't work out a way of getting this done for a reasonable cost. I have looked at patents in the past and really hope that I never have to contemplate them again.
Leo won me over after I heard his theory on patents. They totally provide big corps who have infinite money opportunity to stick it to the little guy - much the same with ALL GOV regulations. They only exist to create monopolies. That said - Leo, how can I protect my product from somebody else patenting it?
You should get to know big clive. He's a genius like you and loves lighting. He codes pics and did lighting for Disney, TV special effects. Named a famous circuit no one could figure out. He's super cool
Thank you so much for sharing this, I love the advices and your spirit, I wish to see more video of you talking about anything and sharing more of your experience...
Having been part of the LED sign, LED video display and LED lighting business for almost 30 years, I'm curious as to what price per pixel you accomplished and what price per pixel you hoped to obtain? I see applications, but price is the determining factor for some application and not so much for other applications.
One of my best clients of all time once told me, "A partnership is a sinking ship" ... he was a strong advocate of pursuing ones ideas in business without being married to someone else in order to make that idea come to life. Though clearly when you need angel money, that's not always possible.
I'm glad you went down the rabbit hole! 😍 I absolutely love the concept. I've always like the idea of devices being powered and data being sent on the same lines.
Cool stuff! I'm not sure what pixel mapping problems are, but I suspect it's the problem of knowing which pixel is where? So I would have done it the other way around. Pack LED strips with as many LEDs as possible into the shape, and use a camera+software to find the individual pixels. Either by lighting them one at a time, or in groups until a model is constructed. Could that work? I think coding the software to build the LED/pixel Id to x/y coordinates would take a few days to code up, and it would only need to be done once per sign. I'm not talking snazzy end user friendly code, but something that work in a controlled environment. I love how the patterns looked, I'd love to see signs like that all over the place.
The problem is communications, unless you have fancy wiring, how do you send data to an individual LED? The Concept revolves around the super basic 2-wire connection which makes fabrication easy.
@@leosbagoftricks3732 I was thinking LED light strips where the LEDs can be individually programmed through a bus, "WS2812 controlled RGB LEDs" as Bitluny uses in th-cam.com/video/fz2QAV9z_o8/w-d-xo.html . Those LEDs seem to have four leads and they seem to be fast enough to be used as a screen. I realize that two leads are easier and cheaper than four, but not that more expensive? And I can buy those at $6 for 20 - you could probably find a way better deal. So a sign manufacturer without too much electronics skill could build a sign and drill holes for the lights. Drop the lights on a light strip into the holes. For large/complex objects, multiple light strips could be used. Run the calibration routine to figure out where each pixel/LED is in x/y space. After that, coming up with the patterns to run would still require some artistic talent, no way around that. Hm... well, perhaps colored 4d perlin noise. All this could of course be performed by a skilled electronics developer who took his time to note where each pixel/LED goes, but for a great number of LEDs, that might become cumbersome. The "business idea" would be to * sell cool signs or sell * the light strips * the calibration software that maps LEDs to x/y coordinates * the software to design the light patterns * the driver that sends the light patterns to one or several light strips connected to the driver/sign cheers, m
@@mattiasfagerlund My train of thought, exactly, after watching this video. Serially-addressable LEDs (strips) are the cheapest way now to do something like this. The money could be in making the controller communicating via BLE to a phone, and the software on that phone mapping 2D or even 3D positions of the LEDs and building the model, then allowing drawing animations on top of that, and/or mapping pictures/video on it. Sell this to sign vendors, or directly, along with LED strips, or as ready-made signs. To increase refresh rates the controller could drive a few strips in parallel. Otherwise, I feel you, chasing the rabbit down the hole is what engineers live for, and you need to learn business-oriented thinking, and when to stop the chase, to survive as an individual "product developer".
A famous book is intittled "Fail, to Suceed". It deals with the emotional investment of considering ALL possibilities. I've watched your videos on the Stirling Engine, and your determination is inspiring. Would Robert Stirling find it amazing that we have made so many advances in his technology? Of course he would! A Stirling Engine driving a Submarine, capable of taking out almost an entire fleet of Warships? Reckon he knows?
Thanks for sharing! Half way through the video, before you showed the projector bit, I was thinking that you could map the LEDs with a video camera. For example, If each LED had a unique factory ID, they could transmit (blinking) this ID 1 bit a time on powerup or bus command. A cheap camera could then record a map of all the IDs at once (smartphone!). An additional programming means would need to be connected to the cladding to program the array with the (re) mapped animation (an encoded stream containing the RGB values for each ID). I was just thinking that this seems much cheaper and simple than dealing with a custom DLP projector, you save the light sensor, and it's especially more convenient for the end user who would only need to do this once on setup and then use just upload new content via cladding/bus. Have you considered something similar?
Makes sense! Thought if they had IDs you could still use this method by (IR-)blasting the whole program from a bright LED source instead of the projector. Overall I think the product it's a great idea! Specifically the use of the Alucobond/sandwich panels for this, since they are already in use in the signage industry. Good luck!
I can so relate to this..i spent years developing a set of audio plugins that totally failed in a sens financially because the computer technology i based it on moved too fast for me to catch up to with my limited financial means and software that went obsolete. Several other hardware projects i developed also fell short. luckly my job allows me to develop one off equipment used in my industry. But i still felt proud and passionate at what i did achieve and looking back it was pretty dam clever if a say so myself.. But i think your on another level of genius even if it didn't pan out i'm amazed at how clever your approach to solving these problems are. I'm thoroughly impressed and i'm no wall flower in these regards. cheers!!!
There are many lessons, character and technological building ideas in this video make me dive deeper to my views. I thank you for sharing this experience, the led animation are very nice. Experienced electronic engineer described project, business venture, product prototyping, learning moment experience.
It's not always easy to admit it to ourselves...but we engineers all too often fall into the trap of investing huge amounts of time and resources developing beautiful elegant solutions to problems.... ....that don't exist.
I have had the same idea! :o) It came to me while chatting about "LED throwie", and described the idea (probably on hackaday, or on a forum, I don't exactly recall the place), but never implemented it, let alone patenting my synchronized programmable LED throwies. I'm glad to see somebody implemented "synchronized programable LED throwies" (technically yours are LEDs placed on a panel and not thrown, but the main idea of independent, programmable, MCU controlled and _synchronized_ LEDs/dots of light is still there, syncronized being the key that put them apart from a simple LED throwie). Sorry to hear it was not profitable.
i expected them to receive data via carrier signal imposed into two wire power bus. it didn't but that could be done, right? at least that's what i would like, instead of 3/4 wire addressables. it has number of issues too, each one needs unique id since there is no sequence of leds anymore. and maybe bandwidth is also an issue. now, bus powered addressable devices work, some use rs485 style comms and now we have single pair powered ethernet. howevery trying to stuff ethernet driver driver into 5mm led seems like outright insanity in 2022, need to wait until 2100 for this
As someone who works a ton with smart leds and led walls. This would be an incredible product and would have saved me tons of work if it had existed. Have you ever consider approaching a large manufacturer that specializes in signage applications and does their own R&D? E.g. WorldSemi? I think there are some players on the chinese market that could make this financially viable. Signage is a huge thing especially in China. It might not make you rich but could see the technology be actually adopted.
in return you would get peanuts, and the corporations would take all the honey ... bottomline, and you'd have no control over what they pay out to you ....
Soooo inspiring :-) never stop to dream or change this dream to reality. I really love your work !!! Maybe ask people (makers mainly) if they whant to purchase an opensource kit to build theyre own panels !!
I just noticed that you say we and us when talking about making decisions or taking a step forward in the process is there another person I’m just curious I don’t see and haven’t heard you mention anyone else so it seems like you’re just saying we and that means you and the project at hand as an entity most probably just a miss spoke and have it it seems but maybe thereIs another person or more than one person involved I was just wondering does anybody else feel the same way?
Seems like you overcomplicate the thing. I mean you already have a data channel, why don't you use it also for data transfer? Just use a manchester code? I'm sure it can be done better for faster transfer. Little bit of compression for faster transfer. In general a neat idea that really can bring cost down for fixed animations. Maybe also only load it on startup to ram and save the flash if startup time does not matter so much. Of course it all depends on how fast you can get. But in the end it's a bit like "powerline communications" using the power plane as a bus.
Do something with it, though, so at least you'll get credit. I came up with a way to use a driven shield on a capacitive sensor to increase sensitivity, back around 1981. About 20 years later, someone else at NASA reinvented it and patented it. Later, I came up with a new and better way to feed ink from tanks to inkjet print heads. I sold several, then about few years later, there is a patent in China and every single version that I made is being sold cheaper than I can make them. And technically =I= would be in violation of their patent, even though I invented it first.
I beg you to make it open source please. That way this product may get a second chance for life. I would definitely upload everything to github, so anyone who feels an opportunity of business case could build it, so you may also benefit from that.
Love this, although I admit I do have a thing for overengineered stuff... but thank you for this interesting video! At least people can learn from what you did.
Don't call yourself an inventor. Those are words to live by. Anytime I see the words inventor or invention in a forum like this it usually somebody remaking an idea that has been around since before I was born.
@@leosbagoftricks3732 Alot of over complicarion going on, especially in electronics. Almost like "makers" want to show how smart and advanced they are by making their products needlessly obtuse. That's what I like most about your projects the reduction to the least complication possible for the sollution you chose. Not that I'm very accomplished in electronics but I know enough to see when there are possible unnecesary fault sources.
@@leosbagoftricks3732 BTW, if $/pixel is the main bottleneck, I bet you could eliminate the housing altogether by putting 3 solder bumps on the back of the PCB to contact the front power surface. A standard screw and nut (CHEAP) contacts a plated hole in the PCB to the back power surface. Now the pixel pops out of the PCB panel and is ready to use. Maybe add a conformal coating if weather resistance is needed. I bet you could make 10K pixels for
Great invention (oops product development) and yes I echo your sentiment on patents..... don't , it's a waste of money. Just make the darn thing and don't be too greedy on the price 😉 It's not your invention which is valuable it's the inventor !
Leo I do not see this is a waste of your time although I can understand how you might do you have the experience and knowledge gained from the experience and the wisdom gain from the knowledge and adding knowledge wisdom and understanding is not a waste of time but it’s not a profitable and usually either and if your primary goal in developing these LEDs was to make profit from it then I guess you probably spent a lot of time not achieving a goal I just came across the channel so I’m not sure if the TH-cam videos are making you any money
Swearing shows a lack of self-discipline. It also shows a lack of respect for other people - especially if they are strangers. To my way of thinking swearing belongs to military in combat, police in a violent situation, fire fighters in a tough spot, those types of situations. I know that I am not going to change the world. But I can certainly change the channel or click on another video when someone starts swearing
Learning and advancing your experience is never a waste of time!
it is if you go broke doing it!
good to get a realistic, non shark tank perspective on developing fun new things 👍
I have been developing my own software platform over years.. I never forget; once, my business partner said: stop playing, start selling... I totally hear what you are covering. Much appreciated all the effort in making this video.
Found this channel the other day and I can't get enough of Leo's projects
Thanks for sharing.. I understand the feeling!
The best thing that happened to me in 2021 is finding your channel.
I wonder how much needs to be off-the shelf for this to be commercially viable. The CNC routed Brass housing made me recoil in cost.
Stamped Metal Housing, standard metal thread for the center.
Standardized injection-molded plastic for the insulating ring.
The cheapest MCU and RGB led possible, like 1-10 cents cheap.
I wonder what the final BOM cost was and how far it got from the "maximally viable cost"
Agreed, the brass part was the zero tooling cost prototype solution.
Don Lancaster had a lot of really good stuff on patent avoidance at his "The Guru's Lair" website.
Increadible tenacity and drive, to get to where you did. Sad to hear it couldn't become viable, at this time. Nice idea and well executed though.
Cool idea. I have toyed with the exact same thing from time to time.
I might've gone the route of bare dies to avoid the ASIC, splitting it into a super-cheap MCU and some external flash. And in my ideas I have used automatic position detection so the parts know where they are and can receive a single shared digital data stream (avoiding the expense and complexity of the optical content coding). Plus the cost of rectifying AC is kind of high, so a DC-based system is probably just a hair cheaper.
Anyway, the patent thing is critical to avoid being killed by Chinese competition, so your business partners in the project had the correct instincts on that one.
Since when do the chinese of a copying persuation care about patents or copyright?
@@rimmersbryggeri They don't. But the importers, distributors, and resellers in western countries do.
@@akiko009 Do they really though? Doesnt seem like it in the "Same old Korean shit" (an expression from the 90's music business) markets that are everywhere and even infiltratin legitimate businesses.
You remind me , my passion was to create and experiment things and I got very disappointed wen it came to patents . Very good and interesting video. Thanks
As someone who plays with pixels both as part of my business and as part of my Christmas obsession I watched this and both felt your pain and contemplated how I would do it myself. Personally I would have gone with a P10 matrix (or somewhat higher density) and programmed it via contact exposure. That however was only a microscopic issue. Loved the conductive surfaces used for the conductors and a bit sad that you didn't work out a way of getting this done for a reasonable cost.
I have looked at patents in the past and really hope that I never have to contemplate them again.
Leo won me over after I heard his theory on patents. They totally provide big corps who have infinite money opportunity to stick it to the little guy - much the same with ALL GOV regulations. They only exist to create monopolies. That said - Leo, how can I protect my product from somebody else patenting it?
Publish it! Make it public domain, then it's un-patentable forever!
@@leosbagoftricks3732 but what if I want to make money? sorry if that sounds too capitalistic but money is nice and can also be used for good.
@@cesarparra6025 nobody is stopping you from making money! Just move faster and smarter
Doing it for the sake of doing it is what makes you able of doing it in the first place. Thank you for sharing!
Brilliant! You did it for somebody in in an unrelated field for an application you would have NEVER considered.
You should get to know big clive. He's a genius like you and loves lighting. He codes pics and did lighting for Disney, TV special effects. Named a famous circuit no one could figure out. He's super cool
Leo - I really learned a lot from this video, but more than anything appreciated your frankness and openness. Thank you.
Wow! What honesty! I feel I have watched a movie about the story of your life.
Hackaday brought me here. Love the video. Cool idea. Hope some signage company out there takes you up on it someday.
A polarity detector to act as a clock substitution is a genius idea! would have never thought to use AC power, might start doing so in the future.
This channel is refreshing👍 thank you for sharing
Thank you so much for sharing this, I love the advices and your spirit, I wish to see more video of you talking about anything and sharing more of your experience...
Having been part of the LED sign, LED video display and LED lighting business for almost 30 years, I'm curious as to what price per pixel you accomplished and what price per pixel you hoped to obtain? I see applications, but price is the determining factor for some application and not so much for other applications.
Great attitude and advice! 👍
That's my motto, 🤨 If a project is worth doing, it's worth OVERDOING.
Later tho, because who has time anyway. 😞
Great video, really honest and deep insight there ...rare ... 👍
One of my best clients of all time once told me, "A partnership is a sinking ship" ... he was a strong advocate of pursuing ones ideas in business without being married to someone else in order to make that idea come to life. Though clearly when you need angel money, that's not always possible.
I'm glad you went down the rabbit hole! 😍 I absolutely love the concept. I've always like the idea of devices being powered and data being sent on the same lines.
Pretty cool design.
What a clever design, thanks for sharing your experience
Cool stuff! I'm not sure what pixel mapping problems are, but I suspect it's the problem of knowing which pixel is where? So I would have done it the other way around. Pack LED strips with as many LEDs as possible into the shape, and use a camera+software to find the individual pixels. Either by lighting them one at a time, or in groups until a model is constructed. Could that work?
I think coding the software to build the LED/pixel Id to x/y coordinates would take a few days to code up, and it would only need to be done once per sign. I'm not talking snazzy end user friendly code, but something that work in a controlled environment.
I love how the patterns looked, I'd love to see signs like that all over the place.
The problem is communications, unless you have fancy wiring, how do you send data to an individual LED? The Concept revolves around the super basic 2-wire connection which makes fabrication easy.
@@leosbagoftricks3732 I was thinking LED light strips where the LEDs can be individually programmed through a bus, "WS2812 controlled RGB LEDs" as Bitluny uses in th-cam.com/video/fz2QAV9z_o8/w-d-xo.html .
Those LEDs seem to have four leads and they seem to be fast enough to be used as a screen. I realize that two leads are easier and cheaper than four, but not that more expensive? And I can buy those at $6 for 20 - you could probably find a way better deal.
So a sign manufacturer without too much electronics skill could build a sign and drill holes for the lights. Drop the lights on a light strip into the holes. For large/complex objects, multiple light strips could be used.
Run the calibration routine to figure out where each pixel/LED is in x/y space.
After that, coming up with the patterns to run would still require some artistic talent, no way around that. Hm... well, perhaps colored 4d perlin noise.
All this could of course be performed by a skilled electronics developer who took his time to note where each pixel/LED goes, but for a great number of LEDs, that might become cumbersome.
The "business idea" would be to
* sell cool signs
or
sell
* the light strips
* the calibration software that maps LEDs to x/y coordinates
* the software to design the light patterns
* the driver that sends the light patterns to one or several light strips connected to the driver/sign
cheers,
m
@@mattiasfagerlund My train of thought, exactly, after watching this video. Serially-addressable LEDs (strips) are the cheapest way now to do something like this. The money could be in making the controller communicating via BLE to a phone, and the software on that phone mapping 2D or even 3D positions of the LEDs and building the model, then allowing drawing animations on top of that, and/or mapping pictures/video on it. Sell this to sign vendors, or directly, along with LED strips, or as ready-made signs. To increase refresh rates the controller could drive a few strips in parallel.
Otherwise, I feel you, chasing the rabbit down the hole is what engineers live for, and you need to learn business-oriented thinking, and when to stop the chase, to survive as an individual "product developer".
A famous book is intittled "Fail, to Suceed". It deals with the emotional investment of considering ALL possibilities. I've watched your videos on the Stirling Engine, and your determination is inspiring. Would Robert Stirling find it amazing that we have made so many advances in his technology? Of course he would! A Stirling Engine driving a Submarine, capable of taking out almost an entire fleet of Warships? Reckon he knows?
Great comment! brightened my day.
You are such a genuin product developer! 👍👍👍
Really glad to your share, very inspire to us!
Thanks for sharing! Half way through the video, before you showed the projector bit, I was thinking that you could map the LEDs with a video camera. For example, If each LED had a unique factory ID, they could transmit (blinking) this ID 1 bit a time on powerup or bus command. A cheap camera could then record a map of all the IDs at once (smartphone!). An additional programming means would need to be connected to the cladding to program the array with the (re) mapped animation (an encoded stream containing the RGB values for each ID). I was just thinking that this seems much cheaper and simple than dealing with a custom DLP projector, you save the light sensor, and it's especially more convenient for the end user who would only need to do this once on setup and then use just upload new content via cladding/bus. Have you considered something similar?
Thanks for sharing your ideas. The bandwidth of the power bus as a communications medium is very low, not practical for programming.
Makes sense! Thought if they had IDs you could still use this method by (IR-)blasting the whole program from a bright LED source instead of the projector. Overall I think the product it's a great idea! Specifically the use of the Alucobond/sandwich panels for this, since they are already in use in the signage industry. Good luck!
thank you for sharing your experience about developing something new and your experience in this process.
Moral of the story don't try to hard. It's a passion not a commitment.
I can so relate to this..i spent years developing a set of audio plugins that totally failed in a sens financially because the computer technology i based it on moved too fast for me to catch up to with my limited financial means and software that went obsolete. Several other hardware projects i developed also fell short. luckly my job allows me to develop one off equipment used in my industry. But i still felt proud and passionate at what i did achieve and looking back it was pretty dam clever if a say so myself.. But i think your on another level of genius even if it didn't pan out i'm amazed at how clever your approach to solving these problems are. I'm thoroughly impressed and i'm no wall flower in these regards. cheers!!!
There are many lessons, character and technological building ideas in this video make me dive deeper to my views. I thank you for sharing this experience, the led animation are very nice.
Experienced electronic engineer described project, business venture, product prototyping, learning moment experience.
Great video! When did you plan to release schematics for the analog clock?
Linked in the description now!
any projects for Agriculture? frank
Wonderful story. Thank you for sharing.
It's not always easy to admit it to ourselves...but we engineers all too often fall into the trap of investing huge amounts of time and resources developing beautiful elegant solutions to problems....
....that don't exist.
I appreciate your sobering honesty 👍 Thank you for sharing, and that thing is badass, for what it's worth ✌️
Wow ! Ingenious. Thanks to share. May the 'force' be with you for the future.
I have had the same idea!
:o)
It came to me while chatting about "LED throwie", and described the idea (probably on hackaday, or on a forum, I don't exactly recall the place), but never implemented it, let alone patenting my synchronized programmable LED throwies.
I'm glad to see somebody implemented "synchronized programable LED throwies" (technically yours are LEDs placed on a panel and not thrown, but the main idea of independent, programmable, MCU controlled and _synchronized_ LEDs/dots of light is still there, syncronized being the key that put them apart from a simple LED throwie).
Sorry to hear it was not profitable.
I'm halfway through and i'm already like 'Duuuuuuude, that's so fucking clever!'
Sucks that it didn't work out, but fascinating idea and lesson in this.
Amazing,
i expected them to receive data via carrier signal imposed into two wire power bus. it didn't but that could be done, right? at least that's what i would like, instead of 3/4 wire addressables. it has number of issues too, each one needs unique id since there is no sequence of leds anymore. and maybe bandwidth is also an issue. now, bus powered addressable devices work, some use rs485 style comms and now we have single pair powered ethernet. howevery trying to stuff ethernet driver driver into 5mm led seems like outright insanity in 2022, need to wait until 2100 for this
You are really doing this the hard way.
Great nuggets in there, thanks!
You are so right about patents. I've done a few - and they are so not worth it.
As someone who works a ton with smart leds and led walls. This would be an incredible product and would have saved me tons of work if it had existed.
Have you ever consider approaching a large manufacturer that specializes in signage applications and does their own R&D? E.g. WorldSemi? I think there are some players on the chinese market that could make this financially viable. Signage is a huge thing especially in China.
It might not make you rich but could see the technology be actually adopted.
in return you would get peanuts, and the corporations would take all the honey ... bottomline, and you'd have no control over what they pay out to you ....
Soooo inspiring :-) never stop to dream or change this dream to reality. I really love your work !!! Maybe ask people (makers mainly) if they whant to purchase an opensource kit to build theyre own panels !!
Ab sa fing lutely brilliant Leo that imo is one of the most inspired ideas and that you engineered it is amazing. Amazing.
I just noticed that you say we and us when talking about making decisions or taking a step forward in the process is there another person I’m just curious I don’t see and haven’t heard you mention anyone else so it seems like you’re just saying we and that means you and the project at hand as an entity most probably just a miss spoke and have it it seems but maybe thereIs another person or more than one person involved I was just wondering does anybody else feel the same way?
The word "partners" might be a clue.
Seems like you overcomplicate the thing. I mean you already have a data channel, why don't you use it also for data transfer?
Just use a manchester code? I'm sure it can be done better for faster transfer. Little bit of compression for faster transfer.
In general a neat idea that really can bring cost down for fixed animations.
Maybe also only load it on startup to ram and save the flash if startup time does not matter so much. Of course it all depends on how fast you can get. But in the end it's a bit like "powerline communications" using the power plane as a bus.
Do something with it, though, so at least you'll get credit. I came up with a way to use a driven shield on a capacitive sensor to increase sensitivity, back around 1981. About 20 years later, someone else at NASA reinvented it and patented it.
Later, I came up with a new and better way to feed ink from tanks to inkjet print heads. I sold several, then about few years later, there is a patent in China and every single version that I made is being sold cheaper than I can make them. And technically =I= would be in violation of their patent, even though I invented it first.
Was that the Capaciflector idea?
I beg you to make it open source please. That way this product may get a second chance for life. I would definitely upload everything to github, so anyone who feels an opportunity of business case could build it, so you may also benefit from that.
It might not be just Leo's decision, business partners might have something to say
Wonderful, and insightful. Instant follow/like/sub.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill
Love this, although I admit I do have a thing for overengineered stuff... but thank you for this interesting video! At least people can learn from what you did.
AMAZING!!!
Don't call yourself an inventor. Those are words to live by. Anytime I see the words inventor or invention in a forum like this it usually somebody remaking an idea that has been around since before I was born.
...or something nobody needs or could afford
@@leosbagoftricks3732 Alot of over complicarion going on, especially in electronics. Almost like "makers" want to show how smart and advanced they are by making their products needlessly obtuse. That's what I like most about your projects the reduction to the least complication possible for the sollution you chose. Not that I'm very accomplished in electronics but I know enough to see when there are possible unnecesary fault sources.
I see you for my last note to you , Thank you
I feel for you all the say😢😊
👍
just... WOW!
The problem is product developers aren't sellers.
So true about patents and inventors. Don't become an inventor is my advice, as it will drive you crazy. Or maybe we are already crazy. Nice concept.
I don't get why you felt the need for an ASIC...
Cost, Cost, and Cost. The MCU is too expensive.
@@leosbagoftricks3732 Not any more! You can get decent MCU's for
@@leosbagoftricks3732 BTW, if $/pixel is the main bottleneck, I bet you could eliminate the housing altogether by putting 3 solder bumps on the back of the PCB to contact the front power surface. A standard screw and nut (CHEAP) contacts a plated hole in the PCB to the back power surface. Now the pixel pops out of the PCB panel and is ready to use. Maybe add a conformal coating if weather resistance is needed. I bet you could make 10K pixels for
@@bigjoshlevine Please point me to an MCU with 14K Bytes of self-programmable FLASH for $0.10!
@@leosbagoftricks3732 Are you storing a stream of uncompressed 8-bit R,G,B values? Any RLL or delta compression?
“You probably get how this works now…” not really haha. Interesting stuff
Great invention (oops product development) and yes I echo your sentiment on patents..... don't , it's a waste of money. Just make the darn thing and don't be too greedy on the price 😉
It's not your invention which is valuable it's the inventor !
Why not just open source things? Is that better than getting screwed over by a corporation that basically patents your stuff?
Wow!
One good way to see a product come to market is to "leak" the idea to Chinese manufacturers
Would be nice to know WHY patents are such a bad idea.
Leo I do not see this is a waste of your time although I can understand how you might do you have the experience and knowledge gained from the experience and the wisdom gain from the knowledge and adding knowledge wisdom and understanding is not a waste of time but it’s not a profitable and usually either and if your primary goal in developing these LEDs was to make profit from it then I guess you probably spent a lot of time not achieving a goal I just came across the channel so I’m not sure if the TH-cam videos are making you any money
Swearing shows a lack of self-discipline. It also shows a lack of respect for other people - especially if they are strangers. To my way of thinking swearing belongs to military in combat, police in a violent situation, fire fighters in a tough spot, those types of situations. I know that I am not going to change the world. But I can certainly change the channel or click on another video when someone starts swearing
Thank you 🙏 very impressive