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[on:]

When ordering your PCBs iTead have an option called “Open Source And Get 2 More Additional Boards” which I first took to mean that if you open-sourced your board and allowed them to give them to others you would get two more of your boards as a reward.

But no, here's the blurb

It is a creative service to help hobbyists to share their interesting ideas and original designs. If you select "Yes", it means that you are willing to share your works, and you will get 10 pcs of your own design and 2 boards from other guys who made the same option and also willing to share their designs.

Now let me get this straight, you get two PCBs of something that you probably have no interest in from "other guys" who may or may not know the first thing about designing a PCB, they are not documented in any way and don't even have the component values on the silk screen.

Apart from stopping your coffee table from wobbling on an uneven floor, what possible use could these 2 PCBs be to anyone?

I await enlightenment

______
Rob

[Reply #1 on:]

Theres no such thing as a free lunch eh?   someone has to pay for everybody's extra 2 boards, and thats everybody of course, and you probably get useless junk for it !

[Reply #2 on:]

I always ask for extra boards although I never took the open source option. I have stopped using their PCB service over a year ago and switched back to seeedstudio. Seeed often gives one sometimes 2 extra boards for my 10 pcs or 50 pcs services. For 100 pcs service I may have got 5 extra once. If you're just having fun with designing PCB, the extra is nothing. If you are selling kits with your designs, they bring some extra cash so I ask every time (they probably don't consider my request but would add a board or two if they can use the extra to fill a panel)

[Reply #3 on:]

It's been a while since I noticed this, but I think they are encouraging you to open source the board, so if it's cool they can copy it and sell it themselves.

-j

[Reply #4 on:]

It's been a while since I noticed this, but I think they are encouraging you to open source the board, so if it's cool they can copy it and sell it themselves.

-j

Possibly. That is definitely a cheap way to get designs.

[Reply #5 on:]

I'm happy to get extra of my board, but someone else's? That I don't get.

I don't think these will be suitable as kit, 99% SMDs.

so if it's cool they can copy it and sell it themselves.

Maybe, but they don't have any documentation either, it's not like it's an existing product where they know what it does and know it's worth copying.

This is a prototype, it may never work (I hope it does of course ), and they certainly don't know what it does or even what chips it uses,

______
Rob