EEVBlog #862 - BK Precision 8601 DC Electronic Load

[AF6LJ]

FAIL lol   

Almost lost my coffee....
Dave should have issued a spray warning with that picture.

[zal42]

the designs currently produced in China are different enough from the itech stuff that Maynuo is no longer worried about a lawsuit from Itech/BK based on Chinese law.

Altering the designs enough to technically pass the scrutiny of Chinese law means nothing in terms of whether or not the designs were stolen. This is an ethical, not legal or technical, issue.

[rizzy]

This is an ethical, not legal or technical, issue.

Totally agree on that one and in that sense what difference does it make if you copy the schematics to a USB drive and take them with you (i.e. steal them) or if you just "reverse engineer" your own work?
If it was you who figuered out every detail of the thing in the first place then you also know all the critical parts of the schematic and the layout and you can easily make a copy of the device. The critical part of the 8500 is really just a bunch of opamps, resistors and mosfets. It's not a space shuttle or the marse rover but just a quite simple electronic load that turns out to do it's job perfectly fine. Everyone from China could copy that if he knew enough about control circuits and power electronics and because the founder of Maynuo worked in this field for quite some time you can be sure he does know enough about it.

[Zbig]

The critical part of the 8500 is really just a bunch of opamps, resistors and mosfets. It's not a space shuttle or the marse rover but just a quite simple electronic load that turns out to do it's job perfectly fine. Everyone from China could copy that if he knew enough about control circuits and power electronics and because the founder of Maynuo worked in this field for quite some time you can be sure he does know enough about it.

Right, but why make it also physically identical, down to the color scheme, controls, etc.? Have you actually looked at both? I'm not taking sides here, don't know who copied who. But whoever it was, it's quite obvious he used the same enclosure design, perhaps ordered from the same contract manufacturer based on the same design files? Now, that is just lazy. <conspiracy theory> Unless it's really just an elaborate scheme plotted to cater to different market segments and it's really the same guys behind those two (three?) companies laughing at us at this very moment? </conspiracy theory>

[MobileWill]

Why do new devices still use VFD displays? I thought they were long gone. No LCD or OLED or something? Cost? Visibility?

[apis]

LCDs have limited viewing angle and worse contrast ratio. Might be nostalgia or aesthetic reasons as well. (There are many very good LCDs but not all LCDs are equal.)

[MobileWill]

LCDs have limited viewing angle and worse contrast ratio. Might be nostalgia or aesthetic reasons as well. (There are many very good LCDs but not all LCDs are equal.)

I think oled would be great for this. I use them a lot for my designs. But in my case they are a lot smaller. 128x64.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

[Zbig]

Not sure whether that's still valid but OLEDs used to have fairly limited lifetime and benchtop T&M equipment often gets left powered on for months. My current model Yamaha AV receiver still uses VFD as well. But probably the real reason is they have already put an effort to integrate VFDs into their devices, secure the supply chain, etc.  The job is done, they work and there's little incentive to change that just for the sake of it.

[bktemp]

Not sure whether that's still valid but OLEDs used to have fairly limited lifetime

There are good ones and bad ones. It also depends on the colour and the exact type of organic material used. And of course build quality, because OLEDs get damaged by moisture. Yellow ones can be great (>10k hours), but blue and white typically have a rather short lifetime. I have seen displays with signs of burn in after less than 100 hours.
The lifetime of VFDs should be superior.

[jitter]

If it is true that the lead engineer of the 8500 founded Maynuo then I would not call that "stealing the designs" because it were somewhat his designs

If you are employed as a designer for a company, then (unless you have special prior agreements) the designs and IP you come up with belong to the company.
Taking any technical information and design files etc.al with you when you leave is theft. And that's what happened according to BK Precision.
Of course you are free use whatever information is in your head and rebuild the product from scratch (subject to the usual copyright  and trademark and patent laws), but in this case, actual design files were supposedly taken.

Thank you for your perspective on this Dave. For the most part, I completely agree with you. I respectfully point out that even though, from our western perspective, this is a pure and clear case of copying and flagrant theft of intellectual property, no matter how we slice it, we need to consider another point. You and I and others on this forum see this as a product that has copycat, fraud, fake, theft,  associated with it. Not so in China. There are copyright laws over there but they are flawed, much to the dismay of our lawmakers and the chinese lawmakers. There are simply not enought resources to enforce violations and there are plenty, believe me. The Chinese are coming around to seeing things our way and respecting our IP traditions. Maynuo's founder indulged himself and so far he has not been sued. These kinds of crimes  occur over there every single day. This why I chose  in the 1990s to not manufacture my own product there: Theft. Ask anyone  from China and they will tell you that unless you have a patent in China, all bets are off in terms of protection. BK Precision did not have good agreements in place and thus their official position ( for those who believe it) that they got ripped off by their partner Itek and Maynuo.

Nuff said. I can decent from my soapbox now.

@grouchbyte

Well, as an owner of a Maynuo M9812, and with access to a 150 W BK Precision, I can only say that to all intents and puropses, these devices look so similar that I had not suspected anything other than rebranding.
Even Maynuo's control software and BKP's had the same layout with only another colour scheme and fonts (no BKP's software didn't support the Maynuo).

Granted, the Maynuo has some differences with the BK Precision 8500, but I had put that down to nothing more than revision changes/small redesigns. And my unit looked a bit grubby on the inside with lots of flux residue, it also didn't have the plethora of QC stickers on the inside like the BKP.

If this was indeed "borrowing" an original design, then the Chinese take on IP is definitely quite different from our's... Here BKP would have sued the hell out of Maynuo first and then gone to work on them next...

[xygor]

If it is true that the lead engineer of the 8500 founded Maynuo then I would not call that "stealing the designs" because it were somewhat his designs

If you are employed as a designer for a company, then (unless you have special prior agreements) the designs and IP you come up with belong to the company.
Taking any technical information and design files etc.al with you when you leave is theft. And that's what happened according to BK Precision.
Of course you are free use whatever information is in your head and rebuild the product from scratch (subject to the usual copyright  and trademark and patent laws), but in this case, actual design files were supposedly taken.

In the US, it seems to me that it is the opposite of defaulting to company ownership.  Software and hardware designs are not a "work for hire" and therefore belong to the original author even if the author is an employee or a contractor, unless some other explicit agreement is in place.

http://www.metrocorpcounsel.com/articles/9954/work-hire-doctrine-almost-never-works-software-development-contracts

Patents, too, are default owned by the inventor and must be assigned to the employer if that is the desired end result.

I don't know if there is a distinction between owning a copyright and owning a design though.

Edit: the link provided does not actually back up what I said about employees.  In fact it contradicts it.

[MobileWill]

Not sure whether that's still valid but OLEDs used to have fairly limited lifetime

There are good ones and bad ones. It also depends on the colour and the exact type of organic material used. And of course build quality, because OLEDs get damaged by moisture. Yellow ones can be great (>10k hours), but blue and white typically have a rather short lifetime. I have seen displays with signs of burn in after less than 100 hours.
The lifetime of VFDs should be superior.

Some good points. I have use many but so far only 1 I have seen burn in. These are mostly white. I only have a few blue.

[EEVblog]

Thank you for your perspective on this Dave. For the most part, I completely agree with you. I respectfully point out that even though, from our western perspective, this is a pure and clear case of copying and flagrant theft of intellectual property, no matter how we slice it, we need to consider another point. You and I and others on this forum see this as a product that has copycat, fraud, fake, theft,  associated with it. Not so in China.

BK Precision (and presumably Itech) don't seem to think so. An employee stole the documents and went and copied the product. Just because they haven't been successful in stopping him doesn't magically make it some valid point.
Just because this is rife in China does not make it right. BK Precision and iTech have every right to call this guy out.

As for the term "fake", I think it's a pretty valid term, but "copycat" is probably better. Have you seen the similarities in the design and look and feel?
If he truly just left and created a new product from scratch, it should not look and feel like the original model.
He deliberately created a knock-off product.

[Brumby]

If he truly just left and created a new product from scratch, it should not look and feel like the original model.
He deliberately created a knock-off product.

Every project that I've ever worked on has been implemented with something that I thought could have been done better.

If a design was taken as the basis of creating a similar product, then it would have those elements addressed - and it would be different.  For starters, external case design would be different to differentiate it from the competition.

By making it pretty well identical to the original, there is only one view you can take - It's a copycat, meant to ride on the coattails of the original.

[Dubbie]

Dave does this new DC load still suffer from the problem of injecting noise onto whatever you are measuring? I can't use mine for sensitive power supply noise measurements because it puts large spikes on the trace. Using a plain of resistive load makes the issue go away.

[steverino]

Thank you for your perspective on this Dave. For the most part, I completely agree with you. I respectfully point out that even though, from our western perspective, this is a pure and clear case of copying and flagrant theft of intellectual property, no matter how we slice it, we need to consider another point. You and I and others on this forum see this as a product that has copycat, fraud, fake, theft,  associated with it. Not so in China.

BK Precision (and presumably Itech) don't seem to think so. An employee stole the documents and went and copied the product. Just because they haven't been successful in stopping him doesn't magically make it some valid point.
Just because this is rife in China does not make it right. BK Precision and iTech have every right to call this guy out.

As for the term "fake", I think it's a pretty valid term, but "copycat" is probably better. Have you seen the similarities in the design and look and feel?
If he truly just left and created a new product from scratch, it should not look and feel like the original model.
He deliberately created a knock-off product.

It certainly is identical to the BK precision product. I have had them open side by side and it is clear to me that it was a ripoff just like we always knew to be true. So it is a fake. I can live with that label. I can also understand BK's position on this theft of IP. It certainly hurts their revenue stream as it now becomes a competitor in the world marketplace. As you may already know, there is little loyaly in China. Chinese customers really couldn't give a damm that some Yank company has a copycat product being distributed all around the world, including China. If its branded Maynuo or ITek, it makes no difference to the Chinese and it makes no difference to yours truly and possibly a vast number of eevblog viewers. Paying less than half for a quality product that gets the job done is far better in some cases than the alternative to paying full price for a legit product. I assume you received  two BK Precision electronic loads for free and after your teardowns and analysis certainly makes you deserving of them. I wonder how strongly you would feel about Maynou's theft of IP had they sent you a unit for free. No offense, Dave. I have viewed your videos for years and enjoy them immensely, but when you take a position that appears to defend the legitimacy of one of your benefactors without the salient facts from the other party, it indeed tweaks my sensibilities. I yield the moral high ground to you on this one.

Cheers
Respectfully

@grouchobyte

Lots of verbage which, bottom line, attempts to condon corporate ip theft.  I say Bullshit!

[grouchobyte]

Let me clarify and summariize my bloated post for those with ADD. There are no facts supporting the assertion that the founder of Maynuo stole or copied Itechs design. All we have  is the smoking gun vis a vis the fake product which is identical in most respects and some assertions from BK Precision. So much for the "facts"

Calling it stealing without putting Tony Xiao on trial is not how we exercise justice. Innocent until proven Guilty.

I am not an attorney and I dont play one on the tele. Amen.


@grouchobyte

[kmel]

There had been a discussion on this forum about the BK Precision vs. Maynuo thing before:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/why-is-bk-precision-still-in-business-bk8500-programmable-load-oem-found/
...

There you also can find LaurenceW's investigation into his Maynuo M9712B electronic load and reverse engineering.
Here are his concluding comments:

Product: Very good! Pretty damn accurate, good resolution, excellent features, clear display. The cooling system, while good and adequate, might have some vulnerabilities in the event of a fan failure, but I know how to fix it for myself, and at this price point I don't expect perfection.
Company: Very good! They could have quietly ignored me, but they did not. <thumbs up>
Documentation: er, mostly OK. Which is a shame, really, because clearly it has not been produced by a native English speaker, and even if it was, it doesn't always tell you what you need to know. This is not hard to get right, and is how far eastern companies can easily differentiate themselves from one another. And to my mind, the documentation is as much a part of the product as the box itself.

That's two-and-a-half out of three, then. Pretty good.

So to answer the original OP's headline question - Why is BK Precision still in business? Search me.


The End.

OH - PS! A couple of other things that I didn't expect my Electronic Load to be -

- A half-decent standalone DC voltmeter or amp meter, with trend logging software
- A reasonable digital resistance up to a couple of K or so
- A background room heater for those chilly UK autumn days when it's not quite cold enough to turn the house heating on (toasty, here in my "lab"!)
- A crude PWM motor speed controller (you can set on and off periods in fractions of a mS, and connect this between your load and power supply as a switch)
- A topic of conversation!

[max-bit]

BK precision, the company itself did not produce, buy or orders from OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) devices.
Multiplies the price twice and sells.
Maynuo M9812B price - 550 - 650 $
BK Prec - 1200 $

[max-bit]

Upss....

[max-bit]

Ultra stupid price
http://uk.farnell.com/b-k-precision/bk8601/dc-load-prog-60a-0-120v-250w/dp/2475140
1150 Pounds !!! (~1650 $ US) plus VAT !!!!
BK Precision +100%
Farnell +50%

....buyer gull let him paid

[EEVblog]

Let me clarify and summariize my bloated post for those with ADD.

Steverino already summarised it nicely.

There are no facts supporting the assertion that the founder of Maynuo stole or copied Itechs design. All we have  is the smoking gun vis a vis the fake product which is identical in most respects and some assertions from BK Precision. So much for the "facts"

You did more than that. You tried to argue that because copying and corporate theft like this is common in China, that makes it somehow OK.

The only "fact" we have is that BK Precision have stated their position that the founder of Maynuo left Itech and and took all the documentation and design files with him to start a new company and produce a duplicate product.
He's welcome to come here or elsewhere and explain his side of it.

Calling it stealing without putting Tony Xiao on trial is not how we exercise justice. Innocent until proven Guilty.

This is not about justice, it's about reputation in the court of world opinion.
People get to make up their own minds.
And if all the talking is one sided, then that's the fault of the parties involved. Mr Maynuo is more than welcome to come here and defend himself.

[tszaboo]

Dave, I'm not sure if you are right that those are ballast resistors. Ballast resistors are used, when the gates of the FETs are at the same voltage (+/- offset) and they are supposed to run almost the same current.
In this case I think they are low side shunts. Also, you have NE5532 per FET, which is a dual opamp, so one is probably amplifying the shunts feedback. This way you can use lower value resistor, which is good because all the reasons Im not gonna list.
Just a minor detail.
Also, I would have liked to see a proper current shunt on the output, probably bolted to the heatsink. You can get shunts for 50A, these coat hangers dont leave a lot of confidence in me. 0.1% max error is not a lot, when we are talking about 50+Amps. I wonder if they are in spec if you run if full load. 50ppm-100ppm/K from these shunts are not unusual, than you have self heating, ageing (can be huge for shunts under load), and issues with layout and terminals. I doubt if they are well within spec.

[grouchobyte]

BK precision, the company itself did not produce, buy or orders from OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) devices.
Multiplies the price twice and sells.
Maynuo M9812B price - 550 - 650 $
BK Prec - 1200 $

Caveat Emptor!

[zal42]

There are no facts supporting the assertion that the founder of Maynuo stole or copied Itechs design. All we have  is the smoking gun vis a vis the fake product which is identical in most respects"

And how is that not a fact supporting the assertion?

Calling it stealing without putting Tony Xiao on trial is not how we exercise justice. Innocent until proven Guilty.

Would you feel better if people just stated that it looks an awful lot like stealing?

By the way, in the US, you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law (theoretically, anyway). There is no ethical or legal stance that prevents people from deciding guilt or innocence in their own minds. That's a very good thing.