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I agree there's not enough information to determine how much he is contributing. I see some wood and a soldering iron, but I don't see evidence he is populating

I agree there's not enough information to determine how much he is contributing. I see some wood and a soldering iron, but I don't see evidence he is populating the boards himself, or his jig for making the finger joints. He might be but he doesn't show a set up sufficient to determine. I'm also skeptical of the claims that there are trade secrets involved in assembling known designs and boards made by others and putting together a rectangular case. The Bob Moog factory in Asheville has glass windows around their factory floor and customers are invited to watch their entire assembly process. Does Moog have more protection worthy trade secrets in their assembly methods than these designs? Probably. If he is putting fully assembled boards into a premade box, is it hand made? In his post it sounds like he is saying he designs the front panel layout and has it cut and stenciled at a facility somewhere, and no doubt he screws in the potentiometers, attaches the knobs, and solders the leads. He says the boards come from China and are designed by someone else. He doesn't say if he populates the boards or if they come finished, ready for lead attachment. If lead attachment and the panel layout this is the extent of his work, perhaps etsy might not consider that truly handmade. Or perhaps they want more disclosure about how much is done. Maybe some consider that handmade, others not. It's kind of hard to say. Let's say I am a customer and someone is selling original "handmade" instrument designs in a wooden case. I very well may assume from this claim that it was their own design and they made the box. I probably would not be shocked if the board etching was done elsewhere. But then what if I find out that all the electronics were designed by another person and the boards are not just etched but populated in a large Chinese factory and arrive at the seller's house assembled. Was I ripped off by the claim it was handmade? Maybe.

fr0sty 13y ago
To argue by analogy, are the (no doubt hundreds) of "clocks" listed on etsy that are no more than a cheap prebought movement mounted through a hole in a piece of wood in violation of the same policy? What about the driftwood lamps and such which are just prebought components fished through holes someone drilled?
- Zimahl 13y ago
  To play devils advocate, the driftwood lamps are all unique pieces made with lighting parts that probably couldn't be made by an individual. A clockwork is outside the scope of individual construction as well.
  - stedaniels 13y ago
    The driftwood wasn't made by the person, but by nature. You saying the clockwork is outside the scope of individual construction, but this guy is getting hammered for using a circuit board? Because yeah, those are so much easier to knock up compared to a clock mechanism... Any Tom, Dick or Harry, can drill a whole for a light fitting in some driftwood.
    - Zimahl 13y ago
      I said I was playing devils advocate but I guess I will continue that role. He's not getting hammered for using a circuit board, I highly doubt Etsy is concerned about that. What they are concerned about is whether or not the guy is doing the work on these. He hasn't shown enough for me to be able to say that he is putting them together. He has pictures of a workbench, some soldering equipment, some wood and other parts, and the finished product. How does this differ from a driftwood lamp or a clock with a ready-built clockwork? It's not just semantics. Obviously there are things that Etsy allows and things they don't but it's also the craftiness (is that a word?) of the project. I'll be honest that this guy's project doesn't seem very crafty, whether or not he's putting everything together there's nothing really crafty or unique about it. This doesn't take anything away from what it is or the demand for it, it just might not fit in as an Etsy business.
phaus 13y ago
There should be an easy fix, you can tell by looking at the circuit board whether or not it was assembled by hand.
- SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
  Depends on how good he is. I built a circuit board with over a thousand solder joints; at the start, you could easily see it was soldered by hand. By the time I was done, it looked like it was dipped in solder.
  - phaus 13y ago
    That's impressive. I try every once in a while, but it still looks terrible.
JonnieCache 13y ago
>The Bob Moog factory in Asheville has glass windows around their factory floor and customers are invited to watch their entire assembly process. That's because moog have been peddling the same circuits/sounds for decades, attaching massive markups to Bob Moog's name. Allowing people to see the process is just part of the marketing game. Not that they don't sound good of course. But the world really doesn't really need any more 2osc monosynths with 24db/oct ladder filters and no interesting features. Especially when they cost $1000 and up.
rustybuckets 13y ago
Yeah, and if he wanted to sell a table on Etsy--should he have to go chop down a tree and fashion the wood himself?
xiwi_brendan 13y ago
To some extent I agree. Yes, I initially mistook the situation for some sort of intellectual property theft. But how could I not? No other answer seemed to make sense. Without exaggeration, I have created a dirt cheap technique for crafting beautiful cases using almost no manual labor or dexterity through the use of a laser cutter. Why would I assume Etsy only wishes to support my interests. That makes a whole lot less sense than the paranoid IP theft possibility. Half of this argument is rejecting Etsy's unfair demands for more documentation while my shop remains close and my ability to sell if frozen on non-existent grounds. Guilty until proven innocent policy drove me mad. Moog is an international company. In a way, I'm not exaggerating when I say all other synths are just derivatives of what they do and they have the priviledge to not give a hoot about people looking into their windows. They know they own the synth world. As a small scale assembler you can understand that we cherish our procedures a bit more as it can make or break us. But to be honest, I make everything as open-source as I can, because I imagine it going to kids like me just trying to make weird noises. When I imagine a big company using it, it drives me mad. Something I'll have to reconcile. The "hand made" issue is almost null to me at this point. I've made a unique enclosure for a device in a batch of three. They're made by hand.
- L0j1k 13y ago
  You are absolutely not "paranoid" or somehow "wrong" for assuming that people in this world would not do something like this to get their dirty dickbeaters on your ideas. The whole world is full of shitheads and thieves, and it is absolutely right of you to assume the worst, because the worst is often the case when it comes to business.

fr0sty 13y ago

To argue by analogy, are the (no doubt hundreds) of "clocks" listed on etsy that are no more than a cheap prebought movement mounted through a hole in a piece of wood in violation of the same policy? What about the driftwood lamps and such which are just prebought components fished through holes someone drilled?

Zimahl 13y ago
To play devils advocate, the driftwood lamps are all unique pieces made with lighting parts that probably couldn't be made by an individual. A clockwork is outside the scope of individual construction as well.
- stedaniels 13y ago
  The driftwood wasn't made by the person, but by nature. You saying the clockwork is outside the scope of individual construction, but this guy is getting hammered for using a circuit board? Because yeah, those are so much easier to knock up compared to a clock mechanism... Any Tom, Dick or Harry, can drill a whole for a light fitting in some driftwood.
  - Zimahl 13y ago
    I said I was playing devils advocate but I guess I will continue that role. He's not getting hammered for using a circuit board, I highly doubt Etsy is concerned about that. What they are concerned about is whether or not the guy is doing the work on these. He hasn't shown enough for me to be able to say that he is putting them together. He has pictures of a workbench, some soldering equipment, some wood and other parts, and the finished product. How does this differ from a driftwood lamp or a clock with a ready-built clockwork? It's not just semantics. Obviously there are things that Etsy allows and things they don't but it's also the craftiness (is that a word?) of the project. I'll be honest that this guy's project doesn't seem very crafty, whether or not he's putting everything together there's nothing really crafty or unique about it. This doesn't take anything away from what it is or the demand for it, it just might not fit in as an Etsy business.

phaus 13y ago

There should be an easy fix, you can tell by looking at the circuit board whether or not it was assembled by hand.

SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
Depends on how good he is. I built a circuit board with over a thousand solder joints; at the start, you could easily see it was soldered by hand. By the time I was done, it looked like it was dipped in solder.
- phaus 13y ago
  That's impressive. I try every once in a while, but it still looks terrible.

JonnieCache 13y ago

>The Bob Moog factory in Asheville has glass windows around their factory floor and customers are invited to watch their entire assembly process. That's because moog have been peddling the same circuits/sounds for decades, attaching massive markups to Bob Moog's name. Allowing people to see the process is just part of the marketing game. Not that they don't sound good of course. But the world really doesn't really need any more 2osc monosynths with 24db/oct ladder filters and no interesting features. Especially when they cost $1000 and up.

rustybuckets 13y ago

Yeah, and if he wanted to sell a table on Etsy--should he have to go chop down a tree and fashion the wood himself?

xiwi_brendan 13y ago

To some extent I agree. Yes, I initially mistook the situation for some sort of intellectual property theft. But how could I not? No other answer seemed to make sense. Without exaggeration, I have created a dirt cheap technique for crafting beautiful cases using almost no manual labor or dexterity through the use of a laser cutter. Why would I assume Etsy only wishes to support my interests. That makes a whole lot less sense than the paranoid IP theft possibility. Half of this argument is rejecting Etsy's unfair demands for more documentation while my shop remains close and my ability to sell if frozen on non-existent grounds. Guilty until proven innocent policy drove me mad. Moog is an international company. In a way, I'm not exaggerating when I say all other synths are just derivatives of what they do and they have the priviledge to not give a hoot about people looking into their windows. They know they own the synth world. As a small scale assembler you can understand that we cherish our procedures a bit more as it can make or break us. But to be honest, I make everything as open-source as I can, because I imagine it going to kids like me just trying to make weird noises. When I imagine a big company using it, it drives me mad. Something I'll have to reconcile. The "hand made" issue is almost null to me at this point. I've made a unique enclosure for a device in a batch of three. They're made by hand.

L0j1k 13y ago
You are absolutely not "paranoid" or somehow "wrong" for assuming that people in this world would not do something like this to get their dirty dickbeaters on your ideas. The whole world is full of shitheads and thieves, and it is absolutely right of you to assume the worst, because the worst is often the case when it comes to business.