"Build-it-yourself" Category under Hardware
wjcroft
Mount Shasta, CA
This is a new category under Hardware, for those hardware hackers building their own OpenBCI PC boards; using primarily the OpenBCI board and hardware designs. This is a catch-all category regardless of which board: Cyton, Ganglion, etc.
For those with completely different hardware designs, there is still the category, "Other Platforms", which is not under "Hardware". This is so Hardware mainly applies to OpenBCI products and build-it-yourself hackers.
Some of the previous threads under Other Platforms have been moved to this Build-it-yourself category.
Below we mention some of the previous thread posters with build-it-yourself content, so they are aware of this change.
Regards,
William
PS in case it's not obvious, building PC boards like this is REALLY time consuming and difficult; taking many many hours; likely dozens. So unless you really enjoy this sort of thing, (or are treating it as a learning experience) -- purchasing a board from the OpenBCI store will likely cost less if you are honest about how you are valuing your time. (What you would pay yourself per hour.)
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I am more than a little dismayed at lack of any response to my pull requests to post more comprehensive gerber and component files to the github page (so others might collaboratively try to figure out to more cheaply and efficiently make the boards):
https://github.com/ak1n/V3_Hardware_Design_Files
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I appreciate the point that OpenBCI has contributed much, and want to see them succeed because of it. But to assert that building the boards is necessarily expensive and difficult when this is not the case (or doesn't have to be the case), just because of fear of original contributors not getting what some think they deserve, is incredibly disingenuous. I see repeated that OpenBCI is free in the libre sense and open source (FLOS), and I would presume much support for it is predicated on these points. To make it difficult for others to replicate the OpenBCI is profoundly contrary to the libre/open-source ethos. Redhat excellently demonstrates how the libre/open-source model does not mean you can't make money and succeed/develop on a large scale. Amazing things far beyond the current state of OpenBCI could be accomplished in a collaborative FLOS model that are otherwise impossible. As a technically-inclined neurologist with some bitcoin, I'm inspired by the OpenBCI model to try and contribute. But if it's not fully FLOS, I'd devote by time/finances to independently re-generating an EEG setup in true FLOS form.
If OpenBCI doesn't want to support people making their own boards, that's fine since they've done most of the work and the websites are theirs. But then why toot the open software/hardware horn? I'm frankly a bit confused at the core group's stance on this point, since all the responses to my messages to them about whether the project was fully libre/open were "yes" - so either the hardware github maintainers are busy with other things or they don't want people making their own boards easily. If the latter, I'm wasting my time here and will consider hiring some engineers to design/fab some boards in a more open/collaborative model (inevitable on the long horizon). If the former, I'd really like to get to work and move some projects forward - with responses from the main team being a significant catalyst for this.