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johndmcmaster

Re:DIY Macro PCB Photography on Monday March 18, 2024 @01:15AM (#39740686)
We have! And a few larger group buys / enterprise customers in the pipeline. We started out selling more expensive Mitutoyo systems (quality but expensive Japanese optics) and sold a few of those. But feedback from customers was that if we could do 80% of what that system does and get it on a credit card it would be very interesting to them (greatly simplifies purchasing flow). But at the same time distributors don't want to carry them because they loose margin over selling $30-200k comps which means we need to adapt more of a "DTC" approach than we were originally planning. So working on upping our sales / marketing game.
Re:DIY Macro PCB Photography on Monday March 18, 2024 @01:11AM (#39740678)
Thanks! Yeah that's roughly inline with our calculations / how we priced things.

If we want to get the final price lower we need to switch to more basic components or tighter integration with suppliers. But we've been avoiding that under our premise having a system that can be purchased with a company credit card (say 5k or 10k limit) is the main requirement. Would love more feedback on how important that is for people's purchasing decisions. And even then if we lowered the cost of the chassis we might instead use that to improve the optics/camera following the "credit card purchase" philosophy.

Re:DIY Macro PCB Photography on Sunday March 17, 2024 @09:20PM (#39739654)
Hi there! CTO of Labsmore here. We would love to chat with people involved at lab automation / digital microscopy to learn more about what we could do to help their workflows. Currently we are focusing on electronics / semiconductor but are exploring bio / life sciences given we've seen significant interest there.

Its also the first time we've started a company like this and are constantly exploring ways to validate PMF, iterate faster, and improve sales / marketing. Please reach out if you'd be interested to chat about the business side, grab coffee in silicon valley, etc.

Re:DIY Macro PCB Photography on Sunday March 17, 2024 @09:16PM (#39739631)
Hi there! CTO of Labsmore here. Pricing is hard :) There is a lot that goes into the final price, especially once the other components, calibration, and overhead is factored in. Its our first time selling a product like this and would love input from others on how they arrive at sticker prices and PMF for commercial products.
Consider asking in the sipr0n discord decap-commission channel: https://discord.gg/qyne7GZk
Re:Happy New Year HN! on Monday January 01, 2024 @06:00AM (#38831023)
Re:Electronics Flea Market on Friday December 29, 2023 @02:07AM (#38802429)
Glad its coming back. Need to feed the microscopes fresh silicon!
Re:Fake chips, I got stung on Thursday December 07, 2023 @11:10PM (#38565342)
I've been collecting a bunch of counterfeit chips to hopefully do a write up on at some point. If you are ok they might sit for a while, I'd love to collect them for that project! Feel free to email me JohnDMcMaster at gmail.com
Re:Fake chips, I got stung on Thursday December 07, 2023 @11:08PM (#38565329)
Yeah I do this as part of my consulting work. Typical applications are failure analysis, security research, or re-manufacturing obsolete electronics. Note however these tend to be larger projects and more than a quick die photo. Although I do (did?) smaller die photo commissions if someone is ok with the data being public.
Re:Fake chips, I got stung on Thursday December 07, 2023 @11:02PM (#38565301)
I agree with this. I often get asked to decap + image chips commercially and its not usually worth it unless its a value add / loss leader as part of a larger project.
Re:Fake chips, I got stung on Thursday December 07, 2023 @11:00PM (#38565285)
I have a big pile of counterfeit chips to decap / analyze. Unfortunately busy with work / higher priority projects so haven't gotten to them :(
Re:Secure Chip Decap Suggestions? on Thursday September 28, 2023 @03:26PM (#37694489)
Looking to curate a collection of chips that are security focused, especially those with hardware security features (ex: tamper mesh). If you have suggestions for chips that are missing from this list that I can get my hands on please let me know! Send me a link where I can purchase them or happy to take (anonymous?) donations. Hope you enjoy!
Re:Raspberry Pi 5 on Thursday September 28, 2023 @03:18AM (#37686391)
Now I need a BCM2712 to decap :)
Some friends and I tried to buy chips from them recently. However, they wanted a relatively significant amount of money for them that more accurately reflected commercial rates than historical collectible prices. Seems like they are operating as a corporation still and may still be protective over their IP

Background: I maintain the largest die photography collection on the internet. I wanted to take some die pictures for historical reasons. Fortunately I was able to get one to image from a third party, although I haven't posted it yet

Re:Ask HN: Any Hardware Startups Here? on Thursday July 06, 2023 @04:17AM (#36612846)
Thanks! Will reach out soon
Re:Ask HN: Any Hardware Startups Here? on Wednesday July 05, 2023 @05:01PM (#36607055)
We are making computer controlled microscopes more accessible: better software and lower cost. We are working on tightly integrating output images with cloud services (ex: AI analysis, data viewers) to make the data more usable. We also have FOSS Python host software that enables a lot of user customization. We rely on a lot more COTS components and software correction than traditional players to keep the cost low (ex: we use mass produced chassis instead of designing our own).

https://www.labsmore.com/

My ask for HN: pricing is hard and I'd love to talk to other hardware co-founders about their experience / advice. One complication is that pricing is affected based on how we make money (ex: are we selling more hardware vs cloud services). Or please reach out if you just like microscopes :) Always great to talk to more people!

What is your favorite BBQ sauce to pair with an 8086?
Re:Siliconpr0n: High Resolution Chip Maps on Saturday January 30, 2021 @05:44PM (#25973779)
The topic has come up a few times and I'm not opposed to changing it. If a good replacement name came up and someone helped with logos etc I'd change it
Re:Siliconpr0n: High Resolution Chip Maps on Saturday January 30, 2021 @05:30PM (#25973677)
Mostly yes (ex: through thin film interference as mentioned), but there may be significant color correction for things like halogen light yellow color. There are also techniques to produce colorful images such as DIC and using a confocal microscope (ex: the 4004 ones I believe are confocal)
Re:Siliconpr0n: High Resolution Chip Maps on Saturday January 30, 2021 @05:21PM (#25973597)
Re:Siliconpr0n: High Resolution Chip Maps on Saturday January 30, 2021 @05:17PM (#25973547)
Glad you are enjoying! I've aggregated some question responses below to try to clarify a few things.

Browsing the /map directory directly isn't intended to be informative in the way people are looking for. It's more of a file store that just happens to be browsable for advanced users. Rather this information is intended to be from the wiki which has more detail and is searchable etc. See for example: https://siliconpr0n.org/archive/doku.php?id=mcmaster:raspber...

Similarly if you can find additional information the wiki such as image conventions (https://siliconpr0n.org/archive/doku.php?id=conventions) and additional copyright info (ex: https://siliconpr0n.org/archive/doku.php?id=tommi:start)

I'm looking over people's suggestions and trying to see if there is anything I can take in to improve the site. Thanks for the feedback and feel free to reach out to me directly if you want to contribute something directly!

PS: yes I know there is some crufty stuff on there like search is doing weird stuff right now with the side bar. I upgraded the wiki software recently and haven't yet been

Re:Siliconpr0n: High Resolution Chip Maps on Saturday January 30, 2021 @04:55PM (#25973371)
Even more specifically it's pr0nmap => GroupXIV => leaflet. I use GroupXIV's javascript, but my own tile cutter

https://github.com/JohnDMcMaster/pr0nmap