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| Oscilloscope ASIC Kickstarter instead of Open scope. |
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| nctnico:
--- Quote from: ogden on January 13, 2020, 08:15:18 pm --- --- Quote from: nctnico on January 13, 2020, 05:38:45 pm ---I don't think an open source project should aim to compete with low cost equipment. --- End quote --- Low end market is only chance for hobby/startup/Kickstarter projects because buyers of hi-end/expensive stuff would not risk to source their equipment from nonreliable sources, not to mention Kickstarter :) They would pay 2x price or more just to be assured that product or it's support will not suddenly disappear one day. After years when you are big fat and famous - then you can look for hi-end market. Hoping to be successful in hi-end from day one - forget it. --- End quote --- I wouldn't say that too quickly. It just takes offering something which isn't in the market. Extendability is one example. Another example: CERN has developed a time synchronisation protocol + open source hardware. This is pretty much a niche application but it is gaining traction in the market and nowadays there are several commercial companies offering solutions around it. Actually, having an oscilloscope platform which could support this timing protocol would be very interesting. Think about being able to do fully synchronous measurements with a long distance in between. |
| thm_w:
--- Quote from: imo on January 13, 2020, 09:02:41 pm ---If I were for example Rigol I would offer to the EEVBLOG community an "empty" 1054Z, or 2072A for the production costs + shipping. No fw, no warranties, no support, just naked (hw without fw) box with a schematics. And you may play with it as you wish. 1054ZN $100 + shipping 2072AN $200 + shipping What would be the response of the community? Will you buy it? --- End quote --- Doesn't make sense because: - The firmware cost to them is essentially $0 at this point. Maybe some cents of production time to load it. - Support is minimal, probably under 5% of the cost ($20 off retail price). Its also a legal requirement in a number of countries. - Market is too small. - People might hack it and figure out how to load the existing FW, meaning you are competing with your own products. |
| ogden:
--- Quote from: nctnico on January 13, 2020, 09:40:54 pm ---I wouldn't say that too quickly. It just takes offering something which isn't in the market. Extendability is one example. --- End quote --- Without demand it does matter - there is something in the market or not. I think basics including serial decode are pretty much covered in the modern lo-end scopes (Rigol 1000z series and alike), business buyers usually are looking for one-stop shopping of everything - hardware and addons (like signal/jitter/eye analysis and so on). As it was said in another already dried out open source scope thread - I want to debug just my circuit using scope that do not need debugging itself. --- Quote ---Another example: CERN has developed a time synchronisation protocol + open source hardware. --- End quote --- Bad example. CERN is THE biggest science projects on Earth, far beyond "fat and famous" (2500 staff, ~12000 contributing scientists). |
| nctnico:
--- Quote from: ogden on January 13, 2020, 11:44:09 pm --- --- Quote from: nctnico on January 13, 2020, 09:40:54 pm ---I wouldn't say that too quickly. It just takes offering something which isn't in the market. Extendability is one example. --- End quote --- Without demand it does matter - there is something in the market or not. I think basics including serial decode are pretty much covered in the modern lo-end scopes (Rigol 1000z series and alike), business buyers usually are looking for one-stop shopping of everything - hardware and addons (like signal/jitter/eye analysis and so on). As it was said in another already dried out open source scope thread - I want to debug just my circuit using scope that do not need debugging itself. --- End quote --- Nobody said you need to do any debugging before you can use the oscilloscope. The base functionality should all be there in order to create momentum. However, if you need extra functionality you can create it. It is more or less the same with any piece of open-source software. 99.9% of the people will use it as-is and the remaining 0.1% will add extra functionality to it. Nothing wrong with that. IMHO it would be interesting to start a Kickstarter to raise money to get basic oscilloscope firmware (software + FPGA) development going by hiring a bunch of software engineers and getting a few Zync FPGA development boards. |
| OwO:
--- Quote from: nctnico on January 13, 2020, 05:38:45 pm ---True. Part costs are completely irrelevant at this point as the engineering effort in the software dwarfs any effort needed for the hardware. A project starting with looking for the cheapest parts never ends well (or never ends at all). --- End quote --- I don't know why you keep saying parts cost aren't important, but in projects like these with one of the most cost sensitive market you can imagine (hobbyists), parts costs literally make or break a product. Look at an example, the NanoVNA. Basic math shows it's worth spending ONE ENGINEER YEAR to save $1 USD of BOM cost, with payback being just over one year. Yes, every dollar you save on the BOM pays for one full time engineer who can then bring far more value to the product. |
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