Yeah. That would be copyright infringement. That is against forum rules.
I actually don't. At least not in the sense of buying competitors gear to take it apart for analysis. I have better things to do with my money and my time. That said, I do look at pictures of the insides of competitors' gear in reviews and such. Just as they look at my board pictures. It's not like I operate in a vacuum.
I go through phases where I poke around and see if I can find an improvement in the Modulus-86. This seems to happen about yearly and I'm currently in such a phase. This particular phase has led me to explore the nonlinearities of resistors in much greater detail. In fact, yesterday a friend of mine led me to a 300+ page book on resistor nonlinearities that I'll need to peruse. I'm already at the end of Horowitz & Hill, Hofer, et al. Will anything come of it? Hard to tell... If nothing else I'll learn a bunch about distortion in resistors and have some fun in the lab.
See... Making progress once you're at the single-digit ppm distortion levels requires a lot more than just copying. You actually have to further your understanding and push the boundaries of physics.
Tom
I believe that once you buy the boards you can do the reverse engineering, design your own board for personal use.
I think this is correct. The question is - do you learn something from that?
I think you will grip only a part of the developers ideas at best without a basic understanding.
And with your basic understanding, you do not need reverse engineering.
I think you will grip only a part of the developers ideas at best without a basic understanding.
And with your basic understanding, you do not need reverse engineering.
Not everyone can design audio amplifiers, cloning what's already proved is a step forward for most of the people.
Even reverse engineering is a big deal, a lot of the boards these days are not 1 or 2 layers.
Even reverse engineering is a big deal, a lot of the boards these days are not 1 or 2 layers.
I'm not sure that's true, actually. I'm not a legal expert, but I do know that most (all?) software EULAs contain language prohibiting reverse engineering. I don't know if something similar applies to hardware as well.
I'm not sure it's super relevant for me either. I can't prevent anyone from buying a board and ringing it out with a continuity tester. I won't help you with the effort, but I can't exactly stand in your way either. If you reverse engineered the schematic from the board and then posted it online, I would definitely hit the Report button. But that's another matter.
I think that's a great question. I think you can learn something, but probably not a lot unless you also have a solid understanding of what the designer was trying to accomplish. You'd probably get much more out of studying the schematics that are already available or by studying the texts I recommend on my website.
Exactly. When you understand something you can apply your understanding and design your own circuits.
One-layer boards are actually still a thing if you're going for ultra-cheap production. I saw that in a commercial amp recently. Mind blown.
Many boards are multi-layer for performance reasons. Unless you peel the board apart layer by layer (which is possible) you won't see any of the layout tricks. And those do matter at ppm distortion levels (and in many other applications).
Tom
Absolutely. With my class-D-amp designs I moved to 4-layer pcbs. Never going back...
It's amazing how cheap (and good) PCBs have become. I used to have a garage fab where I could make 2-layer boards. I got pretty good at it. But then outfits like OSH Park popped up - not to mention the many prototype/maker-oriented places in China and it suddenly just didn't make sense to make boards in my garage anymore. I don't miss the mess or the corrosive fumes.
These days four layers is only a bit more expensive than two, so suddenly lots of options open up for creativity and ingenuity in the layout.
Tom
These days four layers is only a bit more expensive than two, so suddenly lots of options open up for creativity and ingenuity in the layout.
Tom
Also not an expert, but how exactly I would brake any laws if I take a board, analyze it, figure out the schematic and then build my own, for personal use.
Using the original artwork would be indeed a questionable action, but getting inspired from someone else work should be OK.
This is nonsense.
You send the gerber and drill files only,
no schematics,
no bill of material or similar.
The silk screen(s) exclusively show part references, but no values.
And it is on you to give your project a neutral name.
My projects are named according to the date of completion and that*s it.
Nobody will take the effort to reverse engineer my pcbs.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm not a legal expert either. I used the EULA as an example of where reverse engineering would violate the license agreement. But a license agreement is not a law. Enforcing the license agreement would be a civil matter.
I have no issue with anyone being inspired by my work.
Yeah... Security by obscurity. It would take almost as much effort to reverse engineer the circuit from the Gerber files as it would to design it from scratch. If someone really wanted to reverse engineer my products they'd just buy one and reverse engineer it. That has happened to me once already, which is one of the reasons I no longer share schematics and use 4-layer boards. I can't prevent copies from being made but I don't have to make life easy for the copycats.
And just for clarity: The reverse engineering I'm talking about resulted in reverse engineered Gerber files being posted online. Interestingly the copycats didn't bother downloading the design documentation, so they never copied the BOM. The owner of the forum where the Gerber files were posted was quick to shut down the copycats and remove the Gerber files.
But yeah... Respect for intellectual property is one of the many reasons I have my products manufactured in Canada.
Tom
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One thing is to reverse engineering and then make public the gerbers and other documentations and another thing is personal use
At least for me they are different.
At least for me they are different.
They are for me as well.
When I was using two-layer PCBs more than one individual bought one board and made a copy of it so they could build a stereo amp while only paying for one board. I know because some of them told me about it. That didn't sit right with me, though there's little-to-nothing I could do about it. I believe that if you want two of the same item you should buy two of them. Buying one and copying it is, to me, akin to buying one product at a store while pocketing another.
If you were buying a book for yourself and also wanted to give one away as a gift, would you just buy one copy of the book, photocopy it, and give the photocopy away? Or would you buy two copies of the book and give one away?
But there's also a difference between making a copy because you don't want to pay for multiple boards and ringing out the board so you can draw the schematic. If you want to retrace the board so you can draw the schematic, have at it. Just don't publish the schematic after.
Tom
When I was using two-layer PCBs more than one individual bought one board and made a copy of it so they could build a stereo amp while only paying for one board. I know because some of them told me about it. That didn't sit right with me, though there's little-to-nothing I could do about it. I believe that if you want two of the same item you should buy two of them. Buying one and copying it is, to me, akin to buying one product at a store while pocketing another.
If you were buying a book for yourself and also wanted to give one away as a gift, would you just buy one copy of the book, photocopy it, and give the photocopy away? Or would you buy two copies of the book and give one away?
But there's also a difference between making a copy because you don't want to pay for multiple boards and ringing out the board so you can draw the schematic. If you want to retrace the board so you can draw the schematic, have at it. Just don't publish the schematic after.
Tom
Almost every guitar pedal effect is INSPIRED (aka COPIED and slightly modified) by the predecessors.
As Tom stated, emulation is the highest form of adulation.
Art is all like that. Study, copy and innovate.
People need to compare the examples studied on datasheet etc.. with an audio circuit schematic to understand the principle behind what they hear. And then improve.
If you want to make reverse engineering harder, just cover stuff with black silicon.
Modulus pcb official photos (assembled and unassembled) are sufficient to guess what's going on, if the student knows the basics of this kind of circuit (error corrector).
In fact, all these amps are very good designed. They fight each other just for THD+N.