Stefan,
I put 100K of my own saving into this hobby including the 11K I
now have on my credit card. For every dollar I put in I got back 20
cents. Two plansets are doing all the work. The internet is wild west
city. I found a guy a few months ago selling a PDF of my older 7th
Sojour design. I was alerted by someone who expected me to supply
support. There are some really bad plans out there. Some are reprints
from old magazines.
John
--- In
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "Stefan Trethan"
<stefan_trethan@...> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 17:29:48 +0100, crankorgan <john@...> wrote:
>
> > At one point almost 20% of the people who bought my plans finished
> > them. The overall CNC thing is less then 1%. Lots of people bail after
> > a week. That's why I strived to keep things simple. The best design
> > would require a machine shop and lots of skill. I set certain
> > paramerters and then went for it.
> > The big money in CNC is motors and controllers. People get the motors
> > to spin and then they bail. MOTORSPINNERS.
> > Thousands signup for Yahoo groups. Some lurk while others post. I was
> > told by a blackbelt and aircraft pilot instructor that the 1% is a
> > typical figure. Millions buy threadmills but only a few use them.
> > Lets look at this group. How many people join and how many
> > actually make a circuit board?
>
>
> Hey, it's not your fault if they bail!
> You only sold the plans, not the machine, you can't force them.
> Even if they only dreamed about the machine for a while, they probably
> still got a good deal for that ;-)
>
> We all know your plans are perfectly sound and designed by yourself
and
> one example of "good" plans for sale on the web.
>
> But there are many, many black sheep selling bad plans that are either
> totally useless, incomplete, or even not their own work, sometimes
just
> copies from free plans. For this reason i would generally never buy
plans.
> I guess many people are wary of buying plans because of that.
>
> So just to make that perfectly clear, i have no problem with your
business
> or the quality of your machines or you personally, it's all great.
But i
> found it quite strange that you would claim ownership of such basic
ideas
> to the extent that you would be upset about someone building something
> similar. I can see how you wouldn't like his free plans because it
> potentially takes business away from you, but just because you don't
like
> it doesn't make it immoral. Badmouthing the competition however is
> generally considered "bad form".
>
> ST
>