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one other comment... to me the circuit boards look very, very, very similar. And YES, I am actually an electrical engineer... however, this does not mean copying... if I ask you to build me a 10 foot tall flag pole, how many variants might there reasonably be? Same function likely will be implemented in a very similar fashion, especially if form factor is the same and if there is prior art. Not saying that is the case here, but as an engineer I am more than amused at all of the amateurs pontificating without the barest of insight or knowledge.
The folks on this thread demanding that MD and Airist “prove” to them something... self appointed judge and juries with zero skills... they might just be right, but not out of any skill...
Just another example of the internet at its finest - good old fashioned mob mentality and justice... Wild West, just 21st Century Style!!! Yeehah!!!
I have spent more than $4000 USD on MD this year so far, and intend to spend more, but... I pulled my order for this DAC, not for this ridiculous (at this point) tempest in a teapot, but for a very real reason... micro usb, really??? Really???!!!
EDIT: Kudos to Cee_Tee and MD... so much complaining about the micro USB connection... and they are changing to USB B!! Thanks to Cee_Tee and MD for listening to their customers :-).
Back in on the drop!!!!!!
Where it goes wrong for me, is when they try and say that it's completely different, other than the top layer being a similar layout. While it's technically true that it's the actual connections between the parts that define the circuit, the positioning of the parts is obviously not nearly as arbitrary as they're implying.
The layout of the parts is done to allow sanely routing those connections, so while it's not 100% of the picture, there's no way that you're going to have an exact cloned footprint layout with any significant difference in circuit operation.
Could it be an improved copy? sure. If the first thing said was "Yeah, we started with the design of that board, and improved x,y,z" It would be fine with me.
The problem is that they denied any connection, until it was pointed out that there was an obvious connection. Then they switch to claiming that there's a connection, but it's superficial, when it's clear to anyone who has worked with the stuff that it's significantly deeper than that.
The trust is gone. The credibility is blown.
"Most of the people I've seen who are claiming that it is a copy, seem to be the ones who have at least some experience with board design. " - Since based on at least the posts that I have read most people who have commented don't note their qualifications I can't judge whether you are right or wrong on this one. But I have not taken note of each comment and thus I respect your assertion that most commentators on this subject know something about board design, though I just can't get there myself one way or the other on the basis of the many comments I have read.
"The ones who don't seem to be the ones suggesting that it could end up similar by similar topologies ending up with similar layouts." Again, I don't have any insight into the qualifications of the commentators, so hard for me to argue, or draw a similar conclusion as you. But I respect your right to draw that conclusion and I assume that you have taken more note of this in your reading of the thread than I have. "Have you seriously looked at the boards? The layout is _identical_, barring a few package swaps. It's been redrawn, but that doesn't mean it's not still a copy. That, on its own, isn't necessarily a bad thing. (though, IMO, at least some attribution would be the right thing to do)" - Actually, yes, I have looked at the layouts. And as I said quite plainly in my post " to me the circuit boards look very, very, very similar. " My point is simply that I do not know enough to know if that extraordinary resemblance is reasonable or not. Look at most PC boards and server boards and you will see that the way that memory DIMMs are laid out vis-a-vis the CPUs are very, very similar. That is because there really aren't too many alternatives to meet the signalling (speed, noise, etc) thermal, physical, etc requirements. Not saying that is the case here, but that is the point; while I am familiar with more than a few board designs I simply don't know enough one way or the other in this case, but I do know that at least in some cases there are few alternatives.
Maybe, as you suggest, you and some other commentators on this thread are better versed than I am on the intricacies of R2R design and layout (it would be hard not to be more versed than I am on these; while I am an EE I know nothing about this particular design). I can absolutely respect that others have insights into this that I don't. But since I have not sat down with you (or anyone else) and poured over (a) the schematics, layout and simulations of this design, (b) the schematics, layout and simulations of Sosolar's design, (c) examples of other prior art in this space, and (d) alternative implementations, it is hard for me to move from respecting your opinion and conclusion (which I do) all the way over to adopting it. But with my own eyes I can definitely see how you would arrive at your conclusions; I am just not there enough to draw the strong conclusion and issue the stinging rebuke that you have. This is from a lack of additional information, not from any firm conviction that you are wrong.
I am no IP attorney (though coincidentally I am father to two of them), but in the end, if IP infringement has occurred, hopefully Sosolar will take advantage of whatever legal avenues are available, and is rewarded for defending his rights.
As to ascribing inspiration to Sosolar, I think that would have been an excellent idea when Airist was first called out on this, if it was actually the case. No argument there.
" The trust is gone. The credibility is blown. " - You (and anyone else), of course, have every right to draw that conclusion! It is a free society!! I will, myself, remain a little less convinced one way or the other until if/when I understand this more. And that was the point I was trying to make all along, and hoping others would adopt.
From the start, I was willing to accept that William Tse might not know that the board was copied, or that both boards were bought from a 3rd party OEM, or any other number of reasonable explanations, but that's not how it played out.
Regarding your memory example, and having just done some layout including some SDRAM myself, I can say that I understand what you mean about designs being very similar for engineering reasons, and in fact, many are virtually identical because the chip manufacturers often offer reference designs, which are already tested, and save a whole lot of work for the board designers. The fact that the resistor ladders are identical doesn't bother me. It's a pretty simple repeating structure, and it's quite likely that many engineers would end up with the same layout. What I find suspicious is that one used 0805 resistors while the other used 0603, and they ended up with the exact same overall spacing. Also, the rest of the circuitry I would expect to be more variable yet, since it's not a while defined repeating pattern like the ladder is. You could argue that they're both using opamps, and are likely to end up putting their decoupling caps, and feedback loops, etc, all in the same approximate places, etc. but I think that's a stretch given the degree of similarity. Not one difference in part orientation, not one extra/missing cap in a feedback loop where the designers differed slightly in their design parameters. Both happen to be using PGAs of the same pin configurations (I haven't looked carefully enough to see if they arrived on the exact same pinouts on the GPIO, but wouldn't be surprised if they're identical)
And most importantly, IMO, is the responses. When WilliamTse replied to me that the pcb has a "visually similar layout", but was "developed independently", and then later on says that his engineers were inspired by several different designs, listing others that are similar (but in the expected similar, but different enough to be clearly their own designs way). Then saying it only has a similar top-layer, but that the inner layers we can't see are different, and they're what matters.
The part that irks me is the repeated insistence on whatever he hasn't been called out for yet. If sosolar had said "Did you copy my design", and WilliamTse said something like "We started with your design from the forums, added a ground plane, tweaked some component values, and designed some other supporting electronics on the base-board", it would be fine. Maybe people would still be ship-talking him, regardless, but I think I would have been satisfied with that explanation.
Instead, "Never heard of you, this is our design" "well, we looked at a bunch of designs. There's only so many ways to lay it out. We were inspired by a bunch of them. yours just happened to be visually similar to ours" "We're only using the same component layout, but that's it, it works differently" "The inside layers are different and that's what decides how it works, but I guess you can't see those..."
Making your own opinion up on subjects like these is a good thing, but when a bunch of people are saying the same thing and making well reasoned arguments, and the other side is saying "Well, I don't know much about it, so I'll give the benefit of the doubt", I don't think anyone should be too quick to dismiss it as mob mentality.
Except on the mob mentality bit of it. Clearly you have a very informed opinion. And you have demonstrated that based on what you have written. However, I don't really give one bit for what large numbers of people say, regardless of how consistent it is. But one reasoned argument, such as yours, is what carries the day with me.
I haven't seen any reasoned arguments on the contrary. It's a mix of people saying (paraphrasing) "Seems unlikely to me, but I guess it could be a massive coincidence", and "It seems like similar goals could lead to a similar design, right?" Many of the latter even preface it with an admission of not knowing much on the subject.
Maybe I'm getting a bit too specific about my interpretations and inferences, but I wouldn't want anyone to make any incorrect assumptions.
I trust the individual. I despise the mob. The individual is inherently endowed with goodness, caution, and empathy. The mob is buttressed by numbers and the strength of self repeating arguments.
As to this board I bet I could probably find at least 5:1 arguments on this topic that read more like statements. Yours was a breath of fresh air because it stands out as a reasoned position, and not a manifesto.