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Just got my SDrive Max...A thing of beauty..


Mclaneinc

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My POV is that although I can build stuff I'm not too confident in my eyes as I get older so chose a prebuilt one, there wasn't an awful lot of UK choice and the guy I brought from has been a real nice bloke in helping me. Regarding the stil file, well he says its his design so I'm not here to dispute that and he did offer to pass it on later which in all fairness is kind.

 

I don't know a lot about the SD Max but I seem to remember it was a design put up for people to build themselves and this is what this person has done and done a really nice job of it imho, he has a service which helps me and others that are not in to building one, the price seemed pretty fair to me so that's my thought on this. The point of my thread was just to let UK folks know there's someone reliable building these and I'd finally got myself one. It really wasn't meant to turn in to a moral compass of selling or creating cases for them.

 

The person I got mine from was a real nice and helpful individual, I'm not going to knock him for being that.

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2 hours ago, Farb said:

What is unacceptable to me, however, is people selling SDM devices with enhancements and refusing to contribute back those enhancements (or creating barriers to open sharing) to retain some sort of competitive advantage. That is simply a slap in the face to those who gave their project contributions away for free and is exactly the type of thing that many open source licenses try to prevent.

 

I do share your feelings and would add the thought that it might make sense to add a clause to the distribution that at least invites if not requires such a contribution. People who built WP34S calculators and sell them were expected to give a small contribution to the authors of the alternative firmware. Something like "we don't do this for profit but if you build and sell units please share your designs, etc.". It would even feel OK for me to share self-designed print files for non-commercial use only, but then I have not contributed anything.

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I can understand the wish for distributors to put a little back, some might say its a natural thing for makers to automatically do it but in reality unless there's a clause then it probably won't happen. As I said before, I don't remember the beginnings of the SDrive MAX idea, I thought it was a design put up for people to make for themselves so if people do this in a little more business side then its hard to blame them. I also don't know the margins on these items but I can't imagine anyone is getting rich from it, the 3D printing alone must be a pain. I can appreciate the notion to 'put something back' be it idea's to help the project improve or a little donation to the author(s) but unless its made clear as a request its a little like those "name your own price" games, I wonder just how many go to the non pay download link.

 

Probably not as many as we might think but it will happen and if you offer that option then don't be stunned if people do it..

 

 

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When I see someone making hundreds of a thing I designed and gave away for free, it makes me happy. They are taking something I do as a hobby and making it for other people as a service. If they charge for that service and people are happy to pay what they charge, I'm fine with it.

 

When the same person makes a small improvement to something given to them for free and decides to not give it back to the community that gave it to them, it makes me think I shouldn't be giving my designs away. 

 

For me the pleasure is in the creation. I share because "why not", I don't need to share it, I still got my pleasure out of creating it even if I just make one for me and only show it off at retro computer shows.

 

I only make silly little circuit boards, it's of no consequence if I stop sharing my work, but if these people make me want to stop sharing, it might (and it probably does) make the important people feel the same way. If Raster had decided not to share his stuff, the Atari scene would be much poorer for it. If Farb hadn't shared his, the SDMax would still be unable to load APX files. Imagine if mytek decided he didn't want to share his work or FJC decided to keep firmware updates to himself or Phaeron decided to stop sharing Altirra. Imagine if there were no WUDSN, no Graph2Font

 

 

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Of course sharing is important and I can happily say that so many of this community have happily shared lots and lots over the years, be it hacks, coding, articles, hardware and software and of course silly little things like idea's, proofs of concept, of course I'm joking about them being silly because even the most simple idea can be expanded into a most amazing real item and we are so grateful to all our idea, hardware, coding etc people. I've seen the community support each other in so many ways.

 

Yes its a slap in the face if people take but don't share, its a crappy world and it happens but we have to look past it and make clauses that people have to look at and then decide if they was to be helpful..

 

The Sdrive MAX is a truly lovely thing and I have no idea who designed it as yet but I'm so grateful to them as I am to the people that build  them for us that have problems in that department but its not unfair that if they make a new part to improve it that they happily pass on that information so to keep the improvement going forward. If you don't do that then its likely to make further dev that exciting or important..

 

Its all very awkward, people want these items but can't build them for various reasons, money plays a part as does who to use..

 

Just feeling a little uneasy as it feels like I'm getting stick for buying one which I'm not up for after the book nonsense....I brought it because it was cheap, available and nicely done, would I have used an official supplier, yes of course as long as it was not going to cost a small fortune with import duty, shipping etc..I have not won the lottery as yet...

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The focus is about open sharing and not money. The money will always come. The innovations are to be shared.

 

If a person wants to make money off of an open shared project, whatever they do should also be open and shared.

No one begrudges them making money.

They still need to honor the open shared license that is implied by using such creations as the basis of their endeavor.

 

Why?

Partly because it is in their best interest to share as well.

not doing so is bad form and usually ends up with less sales and less innovations over the lifespan of a products offered period

 

It really is that simple.

 

Edited by _The Doctor__
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Can we stop focusing on the money, nobody cares about people charging to make these.

 

It the not sharing back that is upsetting people. 

 

No one here is having a pop at you Paul, you got yourself an SDM and we are all happy for you, we even like the one you got enough to wish that the person that made it was a decent person and gave back the case design for others to enjoy. They wont lose any money doing that, its just the right thing to do given that they got everything else they needed to make these for free and even based their new case on a previous design they got for free too.

 

 

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Thanks! I'm writing some documentation for the SDrive-MAX and I'll be including your case design with all the others I've collected. 

 

Do you want me to list your store in under "Places to get an Sdrive"? I'm only including people who share their changes back to the community.

 

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On 6/24/2019 at 8:05 AM, Mr Robot said:

Here's the SDM with the pen slot. 

47680695_10156680960798672_262933778987483136_n.thumb.jpg.90584855ddc32204cd025992b868cebf.jpg

 

Wouldn't it have been nice if this person had shared that back to the community and now the case you got had a pen slot in it too!

Now that is cool! I solved that problem on the original XL case design by cutting a disposable pen case in half and attaching it before painting (the case was grey). I chose to mount the holder so the pen protruded above the case. I felt this would make for easy access. But, of course, the slim-line recessed holder I think is better for aesthetics. I also really like the extended grill on the back!

20190627_083411.jpg

Edited by Gunstar
typo
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  • 2 weeks later...

Just got mine in.  Thanks so much - it arrived really quickly.  I paid on 6-27, and it made it from UK to USA on 7-5, noting that 7-4 was federal holiday so no mail.  Looks absolutely top notch, can't wait to try it.

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On 6/24/2019 at 9:58 AM, Farb said:

This will ultimately be a matter of opinion and perspective. Keep in mind that I am not the creator or maintainer of the S-Drive Max project and am not speaking for the project itself. I am merely someone who has contributed a significant amount of effort to improving it.

 

I agree these sellers are providing a helpful paid service to the subset of the community that can't or won't assemble the device themselves. I don't fault them for wanting to make some money doing it. But that is not, in my opinion, contributing back to the project. I would hope that those who monetize any open-source project contribute something back to that project directly. These contributions can take many forms depending on the skills of the people involved: code/hardware design contributions, knowledge sharing, community support, monetary donations, etc. Red Hat has created a very profitable business with this approach -- they create paid products using various open source projects. The thing that keeps them from simply being a company profiting off the hard work of others is that they funnel some of those profits to pay teams of developers that contribute improvements and bug fixes back to those open source projects.

 

What is unacceptable to me, however, is people selling SDM devices with enhancements and refusing to contribute back those enhancements (or creating barriers to open sharing) to retain some sort of competitive advantage. That is simply a slap in the face to those who gave their project contributions away for free and is exactly the type of thing that many open source licenses try to prevent.

 

Anyway, I've said my peace and won't belabor this point any further.

 

I agree totally! A few weeks ago I had a discussion with some guy on facebook who is promoting his site (something with vintage computer center) on various Atari groups and he sells the sdrive max for a whopping $96 ex shipping! I can understand that people don't want to (or can't) solder but were are talking about just a few wires.... Any friend can do that in a few minutes. Besides collecting I run a small webshop too (no s-drive max), but I can honestly say I have never asked such ridiculous amounts!!!

 

When I asked the seller openly about the SIO problems he (finally) had to admit that his s-drive maxes did not include the fix and now he is asking his customers for 25 dollars (ex shipping) to fix it.

 

I can understand that some AtariAge members don't care that people are making big bucks of this open source project, but (sorry!) I really can't stand it :)

 

Oh Mclaneinc, I like the case! I hope you will enjoy the s-drive max!

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I try to see it like this. If he's charging $96 and people are buying it, he's not charging too much. If someone else comes along and sells it much cheaper he is going to get stuck with a bunch of stock he needs to sell cheaper. It's capitalism. 

 

It doesn't feel very community spirited to charge so much but if people will pay it, he's doing business right. Business, not community. 

 

I actually had to pressure him to share back his changed case STL file, he outright refused at first. They are now on my tutorial page along with all the others I could find, and I've added him to the list of providers. 

 

If anyone else wants to be listed there please DM me your details. As long as you've shared back any mods you've made to the design, I'm happy to list you on the tutorial too. 

 

 

To play devils advocate... I share everything I make on my website for free, I have a redbubble account I make 20% on purchases, and a donate link. So far only one person has clicked donate, and I make very little on the redbubble sales.

 

I'm not complaining, I do what I do for the fun of doing it. I'm just putting a little perspective on it. 

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Wow...That's steep and the place with the non fixed versions I presume...Mines fixed and like Stephen I got it for roughly half that inc shipping and a 16gig SD included from the guy who passed the XE case out to us.

 

Like many I don't mind a few quid here of there for time and effort but double price....Seriously...

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After seeing the discussion about the pricing, I decided to price out an Sdrive Max from each of the sellers on Mr Robot's page. I'm not saying that one is better or worse than another. I used my California address to determine pricing. That matters because two of the three sellers are in California and have to charge sales tax for in-state residents. It also includes USPS shipping for the US vendors and UK International shipping for the UK vendor. People in other states wouldn't have to pay the California state tax, but might have a higher USPS shipping cost.

 

8bit-Tronics (UK): $67.61 (based on current GBP to USD conversion rate on 6 July 2019)

The Brewing Company (CA, USA) $89.01

Vintage Computer Center (CA, USA) $99.84

 

I already purchased my Sdrive Max from one of the vendors so it was purely an academic exercise. I was just curious because there's been some discussion of the higher price of Vintage Computer Center. It does come out to the highest price, but it's not much higher than the other US vendor. I'm not sure why the UK vendor is so much less expensive. I'm assuming that comes down to how each vendor values their time. The part costs should be similar for each vendor.

 

For an electronics junkie (I'm not one of those), building 1 or 2 of these for friends would probably be fun. However, when you start making 50-100 of them, that's going to take enough time that you have to decide if it's worth it. 

 

If I had been comfortable buying from an eBay vendor (I'm not. I don't like eBay and want nothing to do with it) and seen the positive review earlier regarding the product from the UK vendor, that might have been my choice.

 

My only point is that I think it's a bit more complicated than saying that one vendor is gouging customers. If two of the vendors were around $70 and one was $100, then I'd be wary of the high priced vendor. In this case, without additional information, I'd wonder why the UK vendor is able to charge about $20 less than the cheapest US vendor even when shipping to the US. However, the reviews have been very good for that vendor so quality doesn't appear to be the reason. As I said, my guess is the value that US vendors put on their time. If they don't make enough creating the product, then they'll find other things to do with their time.

 

Bob C

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I’m curious - has it been determined from all 3 vendors if they install a) the “daughter board” isolation circuit for proper SIO  bus sharing; and/or b) a secondary switch to use either SIO power or an external PSU?

 

Either or both of those options will add some amount of part cost as well as time to assemble.

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1 hour ago, darwinmac said:

However, when you start making 50-100 of them, that's going to take enough time that you have to decide if it's worth it. 

This really is what the reality of the answer is.  I was one of the very first SDrive-MAX customers that Vintage Computer Center had; my SDM was from his very first batch.  He quoted me what I thought was a very reasonable price, which we agreed on, and he sent me my completed unit shortly thereafter. HOWEVER, when talking to him after getting my unit, he admitted that the price he had charged me was probably too low for the amount of work and time that the SDrive-MAX actually took to build.  Thus, he revised his pricing for subsequent orders.  I also know that Vintage Computer Center has produced around 100 units thus far.  That is A LOT of work, time, and 3D printing.  The build quality on my case is really, really professional feeling too.  I really feel that based on the quality and time put into these things that the price that VCC charges is a reasonable exchange. I do not regret my purchase at all and would have been happy paying the later full price for it too.

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1 hour ago, DrVenkman said:

has it been determined from all 3 vendors if they install a) the “daughter board” isolation circuit for proper SIO  bus sharing; and/or b) a secondary switch to use either SIO power or an external PSU?

The newly produced units from Vintage Computer Center have both of these things included. 

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8-bit tronics also fit the uno2sio board and a switch.

the brewing academy fits the board, but no word on the switch.

 

$70 - 8-bit tronics includes a 16gb sd-card

$90 - the brewing academy includes an 8gb card and a usb cable

$100 - vintagecomputercenter inculdes a 16gb card and a power supply

 

Looks like the brewing academy and vintage computer center are about the same (a psu is $6-10, brewing academy cheap out on the sd card) but even including international shipping from the uk, 8-bit tronics is much cheaper

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All of this is moot of course. As I said earlier, if they are charging that and people are willing to pay it, they aren't overcharging.

 

I'd like to know how much the 3d printed parts actually cost in materials, IE how much the full cost of building an SDM compares to how much they are selling one for. 

 

Remember if they are building in bulk they get a discount for buying in bulk from aliexpress over us poor people buying one of each thing on ebay/amazon.

 

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