Mµ Thermal Imager - real or fake?

[MacAttak]

I wonder if they can change KS into loan agency like institutions. You don't just receive the money when backed but instead get a zero interest loan, upon project delivery the debt is paid with the pledged funds.

There are already microlending programs like that. Maybe not zero-interest, but Kickstarter keeps 10% of the raised money so they aren't free either.

The reason it wouldn't work is that the entire supposition of crowdfunding is that the project creator doesn't have the financial means of doing it without funding. If they did, then they wouldn't be looking at crowdfunding in the first place.

[Keef Wivanef]

The punters are getting restless 


http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mu-thermal-camera-a-great-tool-to-save-on-energy-costs?c=comments

"Arne Kaiser said 8 hours ago
I’m also waiting to hear back from them. Sent both a direct email to John as well as a message via indiegogo here on Wednesday. Though I suppose they’re busy and only check on that every now and then.


Mark Loit said 17 hours ago
@doug7007: No, as refunds are outside of indiegogo.

@Ken F, @Christopher Wice: I sent my request directly to John, as well as via a private comment here. I got an initial reply [from Marcus] within 24Hrs asking for my paypal info. I provided that info last night, so we’ll see what happens over the next few days. Being the weekend, I’m not expecting to hear anything before Monday. You might try contacting Marcus directly if you have not had any other response.


doug7007 said 17 hours ago
Shouldnt the money raised banner and supporter counter decrease with each refund ??!!!!!!!!!!!


Christopher Wice said 19 hours ago
Same here ,

I’ve sent a request to John McGrath (via the Contact User button) twice in the past four days requesting a refund and I’ve yet to receive any type of response.

Is there another method I should use or someone else I need to contact?


Martin King said 1 day ago
@Daniel/Ken that is a worrying turn of events, BTW if it’s any use it appears John Mcgrath is also the COO of a VFX company http://www.rethinkstudios.tv/contact/ so you could try contacting him through them. There is also an interesting discusion about this project at http://hackaday.com/2013/03/06/a-real-thermal-imaging-camera-for-300/.


Daniel said 1 day ago
@Ken F. sorry to say, similar experience here. I requested a refund on the 16th, which John promptly responded the money should be sent over in a day or so. It hasn’t. After multiple attempts to get an update from him, I finally elevated this to a claim with paypal yesterday.

+1 noRefundInSight

edit: Marcus Deely has now contacted me apologizing for the delay… Oh!...that's all right then!


Ken F. said 1 day ago
I’ve sent a request to John McGrath (via the Contact User button) every day for the past three days requesting a refund and I’ve yet to receive any type of response.

Is there another method I should use or someone else I need to contact?"


Yes, call the feds........OFF WITH THEIR TESTURCLES!

[EEVblog]

doug7007 said 17 hours ago
Shouldnt the money raised banner and supporter counter decrease with each refund ??!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, that is a good idea.
And there should be a figure displayed for how many people have asked for refunds and the reason why.
That would help keep everything transparent.

Another idea would be for Indiegogo/Kickstarter to only release say half the fund up front to buy parts.
Perhaps this could be integrated into the campaign. e.g. the creator specified how much money they need as a first payment.
The rest only gets paid when stuff ships.

[Jay_Diddy_B]

Hi,
I think some of the backers of the Mu thermal imager would have liked to know that John Mcgrath's background was in VFX (visual effects) and CGI (Computer Generated Imagery), before they backed the Mu Camera.

The Mu Camera probably exists in a virtual world.....


Jay_Diddy_B

[grenert]

And that rush will give them a good excuse. Something like "All the backers asking for a refund are killing the project. We don't have enough money any more to pay for production/prototype/parts because of the refunds. It is over, and it is your fault. We can't fully refund everyone, because we spent it on the project."

Yep, that's the exact "out" they will be counting on I bet.

Oh, don't worry about that; they don't need our piddly money.  They have mysterious, deep-pocketed venture capitalists to see this through 
From their campaign page:

We have various venture capital options open to us to fund the project through to completion.  The financing people are hard on our behinds to get this product in the market.  The idea for the IndieGoGo campaign came to us from one of our financial advisors; suggested as a means to retain a greater share of equity in our company during the earlier days of design and prototyping.   So...regardless of meeting our goal here or not, the Mµ Optics Thermal Imager is coming to market and all the early adopters and IndieGoGo supporters will definitely see their purchases delivered.

[Hypernova]

I wonder if they can change KS into loan agency like institutions. You don't just receive the money when backed but instead get a zero interest loan, upon project delivery the debt is paid with the pledged funds.

There are already microlending programs like that. Maybe not zero-interest, but Kickstarter keeps 10% of the raised money so they aren't free either.

The reason it wouldn't work is that the entire supposition of crowdfunding is that the project creator doesn't have the financial means of doing it without funding. If they did, then they wouldn't be looking at crowdfunding in the first place.

But what my scheme propose does provide them funds up front, just that they have a vested interest to finish the project. It's like how how student loans work in New Zealand, it's zero interest while you are in NZ so you have a vested interest to make the most of that degree in NZ.

[tinhead]

being a baker of OpenVizsla I can say that the last update (#29) was sent on 2013-01-30
At least they have shown some photos... Not too much to be happy, but... IIRC "only" 150USD thrown away!: 

pointless, +1k USD bakers in EU didn't got even a single proto board, all these pictures are from proto boards, they
wasted 80k usd for nothing - not even enought money to produce proto PCBs.

A typical example when idiots trying to design something, i thought they have working proto but they didn't,
they spend a year to capture usb frames with FPGA - wow, what a joke. They spend money for everything,
like purchasing Altium (for what?),  or like designing PCBs not knowing how altium works or how to do this properly, another joke.

When asked to share their work, one of the contributors posted funcy xmos code, another one joke.

But hey, there is one good thing, on the next ccc event i will catch them ...

[snoopy]

The problem with these projects is that making "stuff" is really expensive. You have parts cost, manufacturing costs, advertising, travel, trade shows, overhead (insurance, utilities, etc). not to mention paying the people who are working on the project.

Most people who do not run a business in the industry in question do not understand all these costs... so they see a commercial product that sells for $100 and they think "hell, I can make that for $50!  Then I can sell mine for $90 and make a ton of money!".  But they don't know that the $100 product is sold by the manufacturer for $40, and the parts cost must be $10, and the manufacturer isn't making a lot of money even at those prices.

Then the person with the idea starts a crowdsourced project, gets a lot of money... but because they do not have the experience or connections, they can't get the costs down like the big manufacturer can, and before they know it, they've blown half their money on traveling to various manufacturers trying to put the project together - and they don't even have enough left to cover the production run, even if they did it at cost. 

That is the big risk of these projects.  I don't think it's really scammers trying to swindle people, but rather doe-eyed inexperienced neophytes who just do not have the knowledge or information they need to embark on such projects in a successful manner. 

Having said that, I know nothing about this project creator, nor do I know a lot about IR cameras.  I own one (a FLIR i7) that was really expensive to buy... and I really like the technology and I know how it works.  And what makes me nervous is that this guys claim that the expensive stuff is the processing and such, is totally untrue in my opinion.  The expensive stuff is the optics and sensor.  He is claiming to be able to make a camera for $150 that has the same resolution of a $2,0000 FLIR.  That is over 90% cheaper.  And considering FLIR is a huge company that has economies of scale (and purchasing power) this guy can't even dream of, it really makes me suspicious.

On top of the erroneous claim that the stuff in the phone are the expensive parts, I would personally not invest.

They usually are scammers because they don't want to do their own homework and just want to risk other peoples time and money on some hair-brained idea which has a snow flakes chance in hell of ever working !! They usually have lots of their own money tucked away in other investments but won't touch any of that. Much easier to round up a whole lot of gullible investors and engineers and suck them in to the road to riches story. I've seen it all before.  I don't know any engineer including myself that hasn't been ripped off by this sort of scam. You learn the hard the hard way I suppose

But having said that there are some that do work out but they are more the exception to the rule

[Flsgd]

Although I've enjoyed the topic and Dave's rant, I think Mr. Keef Wivanef's posts are way overboard.
Of course everyone knows the investment is a liability: You don't have to spam the board with laughing emoticons and long quotes.

[Rasz]

Even a rank amateur can now be a successful scammer thanks to the internet and crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is just a new angle. It was eBay who provided the largest training ground for future scammers. A whole generation of scammers had time to try every tricke in the book, even invent a few ones, and hon basic scammer skills unmolested on eBay.

You dont even need to risk ebay, you can train scamming in video game called EVE Online. Every year someone pulls off a scam of $50-100K proportions and its all legal and EULA proof. Eve Online taught me how to immediately spot scams (short and long cons).

[Keef Wivanef]

Although I've enjoyed the topic and Dave's rant, I think Mr. Keef Wivanef's posts are way overboard.
Of course everyone knows the investment is a liability: You don't have to spam the board with laughing emoticons and long quotes.

OVERBOARD???
Why don't  you just start here and see what happened when I called bullshit on Greg Watson the great SunCube inventor.
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=102146
I are an engineer and I tried to stop the Great SunCube Swindle

I spent $50,000 dollars taking Watson to court for defamation after he called ME a criminal profiteer wiv no morals or ethics.

I won my case and was awarded damages....Watson shot through and was last heard of peddling Cold Fusion Scams
http://www.lenr-forum.com/showthread.php?184-Coolcat-(Greg-watson-woomera-)

"Real news from Defkalion
Woomera:

G’Day, I was JUST in Athens and met with representatives of Defkalion.  They told me that they were going to begin selling their LENR device this July 2012.

I was shown their R&D model which just starts with a flick of the switch.  It also turns off with a just a flick of the same switch.  They have their model running at 250degc.  They can get their LENR to run over 350degc (dry steam), but they need something more than the current fluid that they are using.  Rossi has problem shutting down his E-CAT.  Rossi is a “one-man-band” and Defkalion has 27 scientists.

Several groups have come to see them including NASA.  They have taken down their blog on their website to enable their 27 scientists to just concentrate on their work to finalize a commercial LENR.  Each unit will have as many as five (5ea) LENRs, each running at 5kw. I went there to investigate possible investment.  They only want BIG investors.  They have MANY OEM (original equipment manufacturers) already on board internationally.  They intend to manufacture 300,000 units in the first year.  It will cost only 30 Euros/year to operate each LENR device

They have all the European certificates.  Everyone else in the world recognises the EU certificates, except the United States.  Defkalion had decided the US is in the ‘too-hard-basket’ and won’t manufacture or sell to the US. The units will be monitored via mobile telephone or internet to insure their proper operation.

I was told that they were trying to actually see what happens in their device with some glass with a melting point of 1500degc.  They saw it light up like the sun and then it melted the glass.  This just took a second or two.  I was told what their working theory was, but they really don’t know what is going on.  They have brought in several academics with a myraid of explanations.

This looks like a real go’er.  It will change the world.  I’m sorry for not disclosing more.  I was told specifics, but was asked to keep them confidential.

These are exciting times. The whole world awaits.  Life is about to change.

Oh yes, I went to Greece, just to go island hopping for a week.  I was on the 1st boat of the season.  I would suggest May or September.  DO NOT GO in August!  The islands double in population in August and it’s TOO HOT and windy.  Lovely place with lovely people!

Regards,  Woomera"

Helloooo Greggy!!!


Re: Company: Defkalion what happened?

I now live in the Middle-East. For now, I've given Oz the 'flick'. The current government leaders used to call each other 'Comrade'. Until there is a bit of political tidial change in Australia, I'm bowing out for now. I want to keep the $$ I earn and not give it to a bunch of dead-beat 'drongos', like the current government in Australia currently does. I was last taxed on my income at 45%, on top of a 10% GST in Australia. This doesn't even include all the hidden taxes and tarriffs. For instance, everything from the States, is twice the price as you would find in the US. Go figure? In the Middle East, it's the same price as the States.

Regards,

Woomera

Well I hope you like eating sand Greg Watson, you won't be coming back to OZ for a while.
The Tax department, ASIC and Keef are all on your trail.
I thought you said you didn't earn any money to pay tax on?


-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Watson [mailto:gowatson@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, 2 February 2012 2:16 AM
To: Sue Yerasoff Lawyers.
Subject: Re: Claim Dear Sirs,

Your clients seems to think I'm a wealthy man. I'm not. I'm 65, divorced and retired. I have no houses, no assets, no car, no investments, no savings, no shares, no job and no income other than my Aged Pension.
I also suffer from recurrent Malaria.

What you client seeks from Bankrupting a poor man is beyond me. There is no money to get.

Greg Watson



Awwwwwww...poor Gweggy!! 

[CanadianAvenger]

Although I smelled the obvious technical rat from the beginning, I originally gave them the benefit of the doubt for a bit to see if they would come through with some tangible proof of some real hardware. But it became quickly clear that they are just spewing BS, stalling, and refusing to provide any evidence of anything. It has now transitioned into a scam if it wasn't intentionally from the start.
Although given that they claimed to have various prototypes etc, if they lied about that then it was indeed a scam from the get-go.

I am a former backer of the project, but did get a full refund yesterday. They didn't even subtract off the IGG and CC fees, so I do believe they are above-board and not trying to scam - But I also believe they are in way over their heads.

I initially gave them the benefit of the doubt when I backed. I knew the time-line was a serious stretch [I'm an embedded systems designer, so I have a feel for how long things take], but by all appearances they had working imagery, and some mechanicals prototyped, which was a good start. However it came to light after close of the campaign that the images were taken by a commercially available camera as examples of what a thermal camera could do, and there was no prototype even built yet. Then there was a material change to the specs for the sensitivity of the camera which happened without notice until a backer pointed it out. The constant evasion to posting images from the camera, or even pictures of prototypes is what finally broke my confidence. And finally, the fact that they are still fighting over what chipset and interface to use to interface to the phone, led me to demand a refund as I could see no light at the end of the tunnel anymore.

I do hope they succeed in making the camera, it would be a cool product at a great price-point. But from where we are now, they have a long ways to go before they get there.

[Corporate666]

Although I've enjoyed the topic and Dave's rant, I think Mr. Keef Wivanef's posts are way overboard.
Of course everyone knows the investment is a liability: You don't have to spam the board with laughing emoticons and long quotes.

OVERBOARD???

Way overboard.

I have no idea who "Greg Watson" is - but I clicked your link and it looks there is some internet flame war going back to 2007. 

Frankly, what does any of that have to do with the MuImager guys?  It seems the only connection is they both appear to be fast and loose with their claims, but you're posting page after page of links and angst-ridden vengeful stuff about this Greg Watson who seems to be a completely different person from a completely different business totally unrelated to IndieGogo or MuImager - is that right?

[Keef Wivanef]

Greg Watson (professional con-artist) came on the scene long before crowd-funding.
He had to work a bit harder to spread his lies across the web and lure in victims.
"new planet saving invention almost ready...send money now"

Con artists like Watson quickly realised that claiming environmental benefits earns sympathy from many people and that most of those people don't have the scientific or engineering knowledge to see the obvious flaws.
Watson went on to cause BILLION DOLLAR LOSSES to investors.

Crowd-funding is a wonderful tool for con-artists. It is being used in conjunction with social networking to reach a massive pool of potential victims.

Each recruit will go on to evangelise for the "planet saving widget"
Once a critical mass has been achieved and the widget is high on the Google rankings it gains an undeserved credibility.
(A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth)

Just Google " Ecat" for a classic example.
A convicted criminal, environmental vandal with Mafia connections has built an empire on Cold Fusion Crapolata.

Aaaaaaaaaargh!

[Corporate666]

Greg Watson (professional con-artist) came on the scene long before crowd-funding.
He had to work a bit harder to spread his lies across the web and lure in victims.
"new planet saving invention almost ready...send money now"

Con artists like Watson quickly realised that claiming environmental benefits earns sympathy from many people and that most of those people don't have the scientific or engineering knowledge to see the obvious flaws.
Watson went on to cause BILLION DOLLAR LOSSES to investors.

Crowd-funding is a wonderful tool for con-artists. It is being used in conjunction with social networking to reach a massive pool of potential victims.

Each recruit will go on to evangelise for the "planet saving widget"
Once a critical mass has been achieved and the widget is high on the Google rankings it gains an undeserved credibility.
(A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth)

Just Google " Ecat" for a classic example.
A convicted criminal, environmental vandal with Mafia connections has built an empire on Cold Fusion Crapolata.

Aaaaaaaaaargh!

I understand that crowdfunding is fertile ground for con artists.  And I also understand that the guy you apparently went to war with was a con artist.  I'm not disputing either of those things, and I commend you for going after the guy who was running a scam.

My point is simply that you seem to have a lot of residual angst towards this Watson guy and you're venting it here... but I don't think this Watson guy has anything to do with Mu nor do I see anything that says he's using crowdfunding websites to scam people.  It just seems like you're still angry over whatever happened and shouting from the highest rooftop you can find about it. 

But that's not really what this forum is about.

[Keef Wivanef]

I think we should let Dave decide what this forum is about 

" It just seems like you're still angry over whatever happened and shouting from the highest rooftop you can find about it.  "

Well, I am still peeved that I am $50K out of pocket and that ASIC and the other regulators give a green light to such operations..

I like THIS ROOFTOP because Dave allows much more freedom to name and shame than most other forums do.

"It would be appreciative if a few guidelines are now followed for this thread:

1. Keep it relevant. Posting links regarding information from literally years ago (sometimes up to a decade old) is not relevant.

2. Robust discussion is OK. Back and forth slanging matches between two or three individuals is not. Take that to whim messages if need be and be civil.

3. Replying or commenting to posts made by the incumbent serial pest known as "Keef" or any of his subsequently created accounts will be removed immediately as off topic and add to your deleted post history. Also remember that this accumulated history may lead to a penalty period. Therefore do not waste your time posting it in the first place.

We know who "Keef" is. We know his whereabouts and his real name. This is all logged and is being compiled as evidence.

Thank you for your understanding."

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1660945#

[EEVblog]

I think we should let Dave decide what this forum is about 
Well, I am still peeved that I am $50K out of pocket and that ASIC and the other regulators give a green light to such operations..
I like THIS ROOFTOP because Dave allows much more freedom to name and shame than most other forums do.

Yes, but please don't do it in this thread.
If you have something else you want to discuss, start another thread.
And please refrain from simply posting quotes and then a head banging emoticon. That's not adding any original content here.

[Arlo1]

They posted a video.... But it doesn't load so fake?  I am not sure but I need a budget thermal camera I can watch things in real time with some decent resolution for developing electric motor controller parts and testing on the dyno.   Anyone know where a good place to look is?  The best I can find is a FLIR on ebay starting at ~$1300   

[CanadianAvenger]

They re-posted the video, it is up now. But still not enough to say it is real, the UI is running in the iOS sim. Still no evidence of actual hardware.

[amspire]

They re-posted the video, it is up now. But still not enough to say it is real, the UI is running in the iOS sim. Still no evidence of actual hardware.

They say the IR image is not real - it won't be till they get the new WiFi IC that they just very recently got supplied. Until the WiFi chip software is working, they cannot get IR images to the phone or anywhere else I gather.The IR image in the demonstration is just a simulated IR image. Perhaps they just color-shifted the original image to make it look like an IR image.

They were demonstrating the App only.

When they have the WiFi communicating with the App, then hopefully they can show a real IR image. That is what everyone is waiting for I gather.

It would be nice to think that because they estimated a May delivery that they now should become magicians and get everything working instantly, but it wont happen. The estimate was always impossible and now they have demonstrated that it was a ridiculous delivery estimate. No great surprise there. They may need new PCB revisions, they will have stupid bugs in their software that might keep them stuck for weeks. Even when it is working, they probably should spend another 3 months at least working on polishing the interface, the bugs and phone compatibility issues before releasing, but I guess they will try and rush something out as soon as they can - bugs and all.

They might have the WiFi working next week. They might have it working in 3 months. Who knows?

[firewalker]

So, it will be capable of thermal sensing through glass? 



Alexander.

[amspire]

So, it will be capable of thermal sensing through glass? 

I am very glad it is not a problem I have to worry about.

There are glass lenses available for the Long Wave IR band, so if they are using a glass lens (I wouldn't have a clue),  is nothing stopping them in theory. The LWIR glass lenses are not ordinary glass of course.

[edavid]

They say the IR image is not real - it won't be till they get the new WiFi IC that they just very recently got supplied. Until the WiFi chip software is working, they cannot get IR images to the phone or anywhere else I gather.The IR image in the demonstration is just a simulated IR image. Perhaps they just color-shifted the original image to make it look like an IR image.

OK, why do they need WiFi to show IR images?  I would think with everyone calling them scammers, they would put the WiFi and the app aside for now and just demonstrate that the camera works.

[mikeselectricstuff]

They might have the WiFi working next week. They might have it working in 3 months. Who knows?

Screw the WiFi - that's just window dressing  they've yet to provide any evidence of any functioning thermal imaging. The fact they still haven't after all this time and all the criticism can only lead to the conclusion that they have nothing. 

[amspire]

OK, why do they need WiFi to show IR images?  I would think with everyone calling them scammers, they would put the WiFi and the app aside for now and just demonstrate that the camera works.

Yes they do. How else does an image get from their PCB to the phone? If the link is WiFi, and WiFi is not working, then no link.

It doesn't matter how much you use words like "scammer".