

Microduino: Arduino in your pocket, small, stackable, smart - sirtel
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/microduino/microduino-arduino-in-your-pocket-small-stackable

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microduino
Hello, Everyone,

It's Microduno Studio, we has been working on the small, elegant boards over
one year. We love Microduinos and are putting much time and effort to improve
and balance Microduino’s performance, usability and appearance. Microduino is
made very small and elegant without sacrificing its functionality. Sometimes
we revised the PCB, just because there were components not aligned well on PCB
board. We want everything to be perfect so you would love it. We enjoy every
minute we design/test/use Microduino and want to share Microduino with more
people, which is why we go to Kickstarter. There many great makers/geeks like
you can share brilliant ideas and designs together.

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To clarify things regarding the _agent_ or _distributors_ , there are some
basic facts of Microduino:

1\. Since we set up Microduino Studio in 2012, Microduino studio has NEVER
authorized any agent or distributor to sell any Microduino product.

2\. Microduino started to promote Microduino brand and products since May
2013. Initially we were targeting to start Kickstarter project on Aug 22,
2013, but finally launched it on Sep 9, 2013. We paid special attention not to
contact or authorize any agent or distributor before and during Kickstarter
campaign, to avoid any potential issue.

3\. From May 2013, we had provided some Microduino samples to our community
members with prices equal or even lower than our cost. That was for Microduino
modules testing and user experience purpose only, never for resale. Those
early versions have some problems and bugs (check details in our product wiki
history). And thanks for the feedback from community members, we have modified
our design many times to improve everything. Seveal revisions have been made
since then. Actually many potential distributors and agents have contacted us.
Our answer has always been: we're not ready. We must focus on design itself so
that we can provide perfect products to all community members.

4\. We don't know from which channel Hobby Components got some samples of
Microduino. We checked our sample distributing record. There is a Microduino
Chinese user, who bought 20 Microduino sample sets in June 2013 from us, and
finally sold them to a “Europe user”. This user had never told us any detail
about this Europe user before. Until now, we guess that was “Hobby Component”.

5\. We have sent message to “Hobby Components” to ask them stop selling any
Microduino modules without our authorization.

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Many statements of “Hobby Components” are not true at their website. Below
please find our comments:

“Hobby Components has been selling Microduino products since the beginning of
June this year and these products were manufactured and purchased from by
Microduino Studios. That Microduino Studios were fully aware that these boards
were purchased for the purpose of resale. At no point has Microduino ever
conveyed that their products were not intended for resale.”

[Microduino:] It’s not true! The boards are made by Microduino studio, but
they were not directly purchased from Microduino Studios. We didn’t know why
and from which channel “Hobby” got these samples.

“It is the belief of Hobby Components that Microduino Studios have been
producing batches of module, have knowingly sold them for resale, and that
they changed this policy as a result of the Kickstarter project. That
Microduino knowing that existing availability of its products would have a
significant effect on its ability to raise funding via its Kickstarter
project, consciously decided to hide this fact by denouncing our website as
“fakes”, “frauds” and “scams”.”

[Microduino:] It’s not true! Since we began to promote Microduino, our goal
was to launch Microduino Kickstarter project. We made a very clear
schedule/milestone and task assignments, and we followed it step by step.

“Microduino Studios have also made contact with us several times in the past
via our supply chain prior to the kickstarter project regarding placing of
orders, availability of their products and feedback.”

[Microduino:] It’s not true! We didn’t know who their supply chain was. We
didn’t even know the “Hobby Components” name before. We just heard this name
after we received a message from a backer on Kickstarter.

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After all, if Hobby Components wants to sell Microduino products, it should
have directly contacted us to get authorization, not the other way around.

We strongly request Hobby Components to stop spreading untrue statements
against Microduino Studio. We hope this issue can be resolved as quickly as
possible. However, if it continues, we will take every action we see necessary
to protect ourselves.

If you still have any question regarding this issue, you can contact us
directly at makermodule@gmail.com.

You can reach us through Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Wiki for more
Information.

Facebook:
[http://www.facebook.com/Microduino](http://www.facebook.com/Microduino)

Google+:
[https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/11793384582717462464...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/117933845827174624649)
(volunteer setup by a Microduino backer)

Twitter:
[http://www.twitter.com/Microduino](http://www.twitter.com/Microduino)

Wiki: [http://wiki.Microduino.cc](http://wiki.Microduino.cc)

Best Regards,

Microduino Studio

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Squonk42
Thank you for your statement!

Without proof, it is very difficult to find out who is telling the truth, and
I sincerely hope that this situation will be solved asap for the product's
sake.

From a more technical point of view, the Microduino board looks like an
interesting idea, but as Open Hardware, you won't be able to prevent people
rolling their own board, although you can block them from using a registered
name (is "Microduino" registered like "Arduino" is?).

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oneweekwonder
Some interesting controversies around the project.

Firstly my assumptions may be horribly wrong, but it seems that:

\- Microduino(The company) is the suppliers of Microduino(s).

\- They previously sold it to companies that would sell it to consumers, a
example is Hobby Components.

\- Starting with the Kick Starter project they started to warn prospective
customers of companies that sells "fake" Microduino.

\- zhouyisu, posted a link to a Chinese company(distributor/supplier?) that
also sells it. Is theses Microduino fake?

Keeping the above in mind, arduino was designed with open hardware in mind. So
you can easily get spinoff project like these.

But there is also a risk that other people will be able to work off your hard
work, which I don't think is really wrong.

Because I believe value is not in the physical product but the support. So buy
it from the cheapest company, but don't expect support from another company.

In regards to Microduino using kickstarter they way it is using it at the
moment, I don't believe their doing something wrong. After all they are crowd-
funding.

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zhouyisu
This is not a new product. Here is a history list of this product and its
price in China: [http://rate.taobao.com/user-
rate-174397421.htm](http://rate.taobao.com/user-rate-174397421.htm)

~~~
3327
thats fast. SO basically, take existing product start kickstarter + nice
profit margin, and claim the credit if I understand correctly. Not that its
wrong or anything...

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Squonk42
It looks like there is some controversy going on regarding the Kickstarter
"fake Microduino" statement:
[http://hobbycomponents.com/index.php/dvbd/microduino.html](http://hobbycomponents.com/index.php/dvbd/microduino.html)

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michelb
How would this compare to [http://www.rfduino.com](http://www.rfduino.com)?

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jimmcslim
Also, isn't this a clone of the DigiSpark and its Kickstarter?

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digistump/digispark-
the-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digistump/digispark-the-tiny-
arduino-enabled-usb-dev-board)

~~~
Squonk42
No, the DigiSpark is based on an ATTiny85 microcontroller, the Microduino is
ATmega328P/ATmega168PA-based (Core) or ATmega644PA/ATmega1284P-based (Core+),
like the Arduino Uno and Arduino Mega2560, respectively.

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djhworld
I've never really gotten into the arduino scene, mainly because I'm too dumb
to understand EE.

This project seems pretty cool though, I like the stackable nature of the
modules.

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msutherl
Ugh, I wish people would stop using the FTDI chips for USB. They are
unsuitable for multi-channel, high bandwidth, low latency data acquisition.

~~~
swamp40
What would you suggest as a replacement?

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msutherl
Built in USB (i.e. use something like the ATmega32U4) or a custom USB chip
like they started doing with the Arduino.

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fnordfnordfnord
I agree with you here, but it is easy to screw it up. Early Arduino UNO models
had to have the USB bridge's firmware updated because someone forgot a
compiler flag, which resulted in a difficult to troubleshoot bug that would
effectively 'brick'[1] some boards.
[http://arduino.cc/en/Hacking/DFUProgramming8U2](http://arduino.cc/en/Hacking/DFUProgramming8U2)

[1] Not really bricked, but bricked to someone who is expecting an Arduino,
and new to microcontrollers.

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throwaway1979
How does this compare with Tiny Circuits([http://tiny-
circuits.com/](http://tiny-circuits.com/))?

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s_baby
I've been thinking about this idea for a couple months and here it is. There
are no original ideas.

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ctdonath
Pretty much any idea I have becomes an available product about 6 months later.

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nnnnni
Could this be used as the base of the electronics in a reprap?

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microduino
Yes, it could be, actually we're designing a 3D-printer board, which is under
testing stage, not ready yet.

Please check some snapshot of it from our facebook page:
[https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.158118377715808.10...](https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.158118377715808.1073741848.153377601523219&type=3)

