Modding Patent Pending: Glowing UV Blue IDE cable - Activity LED ! 13 pics ! ->

Just a quickie on the issue of patents... how many ideas that were created in the modding community are now commercially available, with big companies making money from some modders ideas... not not paying him / her for their inventivness???? Did the first ever guy to make a rehobus fan controller ever see a penny from Sunbeam??? I doubt it very much... I think patents are ok in principal, to protect the little guys from losing out to the big corporates... maybe there should be some kind of open-patent, like there is with open-source software... so an idea can be used freely amongst the general population, for personal use... but any modification to the idea, or if the mod is manufactured for profit, and the originator must be paid a fee...

Lee

 

Ok,

Ive not read all through this thread but i would like to post a idea.

So that you can keep it on all the time, add some caps, enough to hold for say 10-20 seconds, then when they are charged... light will be consistand

 

Very nice idea !
but it will be the same with the case front HDD LED...

I like it more like that !

Thanks

 

i happened to stumble upon this quote while reading this article: http://www.bit-tech.net/article/128/ about antec getting mad after patenting the LED fan. i decided to post it, not because i think badly of anyone on here, but instead to back up what i said earlier. i had mostly forgotten about it, until reading this:

Editor's Comments:

Perhaps more concerning is the blatent 'rip-off' of ideas from the modding community. We at bit-tech have been used to seeing our ideas taken by Taiwanese companies and commercialised, then being sold to the modding community we have helped to create. We can deal with this. What seems to us to be a pretty heinous course of action is for Antec to take these ideas, put out not only by modders but by other companies prior to their patent application, and to attempt to grab the idea for their exclusive use.

I'm not saying that everything has to be Open Source and hippy-huggy, but to restrict innovation through patent law, especially for something that quite possibly isn't even your own original idea, just isn't cricket.

- Wil "Haz" Harris

i just agreed whole-heartedly with wil's comment, and felt i should throw it up where here, because i believe the concept is important

just my two copper lincoln's

 

Well, in Antec's case their patent is on some of their specific design ideas (like using 3 leds), not on the concept on a lit fan itself.

 

I just had an idea to expand on this 1. I wont b using it my self. But you could run LED's all along the wire. Then using "frosted" clear tubing to creat a possibly very cool effect. If any 1 attempts this post piccies and let me know (i want royalties (j/k))

 

Would this work on other IDE devices? or is it only HDD's that use the activity pin?

 

I think it will only work on HDD's, most other IDE drives dont use it for any reason. Never seen the HDD LED on a case light up on my computer when the CD/DVD-ROM was reading ne ways. not in 12 years (my god that long!?!) of building computers, n to really scare u, im only 19!!!!!

 

Very nice mode mate, I like it.
Now about being first to do this, I think you are probably the first to put the LEDs in the cable...
But if you look around at xbox-scene forums you will see activity LEDs done to death with all possible variations.

 

Thanks

 

As morpine said (and I dont think anyone else noticed) didnt Zapwizard do this a couple of years back now?

I mooched around his site but cant find the guide..

::EDIT:: Oh my goodness. Ive actually just realised this thread is ANCIENT.

Holy thread revival batman :S

 

I think it's a pretty cool mod, whoever did it first.

I also think SOMEONE patenting it would be a good idea. It's something that Ultra, or some other "premod" company could easily put out using a modders original idea, and make a ton off it.

If a modder patents it, or at least has patent pending that won't happen.

If said modder wants to offer it to a manufacturer for a percentage, more power to him. We would all still be able to do it ourselves, just not sell them.

Patents don't hurt modders, I can only see them protecting a modders original idea.

Just like the cigarette lighter bay. Someone did it, posted it all over the internet, and sure enough sunbeam made a commercial version. If the originator had patented it he could have proposed the design to sunbeam, and made a few bucks off his mod, while being able to say "hey, I invented that". Again, we could all still make our own, just not sell them.

Just my 2 cents.

Mod On!

 

you'r, as far as I know, the first to do this with an IDE, yes, but I did the same thing with some of my molex's . And that, I know, has been done before me.

but cool

as for patent: Getting something patented costs one heck of a lot of money, even if its just in one country. So you better be ready to risk some monetas on this. Hell, even if the application is not accepted, you still have to pay for the paperwork, and that alone is fairly expensive.

 

Somebody asked about an IDE cable with EL wire running through it...

http://www.thinkgeek.com/pcmods/cables/608f/

first result on google search for "el wire ide cable"

 

(I know this thread is old)

Two things about patents that are interesting:

1: Even if someone patents an idea, they only have a certain amount of time to commercialize it. Otherwise, since the idea was not properly utilized for the market, another company can go ahead and make it available. In other words, you cannot patent an idea so that noone else can use it without making use of it yourself. BUT:

2: People who invent new ideas and patent them are often blatently ripped-off by large companies who just basically rip the idea and mass-produce it. This sounds like a bad thing, but think of it this way: Often these inventors are not rich people, and in order to market thier idea have to find investors or take a risk and borrow the money directly. In these cases, production is rather slow and marketing is based on word-of-mouth. The big company sees the product and decides to mass-produce it. The 'little guy' finds out eventually and sues the big company. During this time, the big company makes a ton of profit and most times doesnt put up a fight at all about compensation. They just pay the little guy thousands to millions depending on units sold. The big company can afford it if the product was succesful, and it would have taken the little guy years to have earned it without the financial backing and infrastructure of the large company. Both win out financially.

 

Like Antec and the LED fan?

I'm sure the chenming 601 case design is patented,but that doesn't stop other companies from copying it exactly. Heck, we still don't know who had the original.

 

does anyone know how many LEDs can be hooked up to the activity line. hopefully more than one. and if not is it possiable to give the LED's there own power source but hook them up to the activitly line. thanks in advance

 

even one is almost too much....

you can try two leds (one on each connector)
but their brightness will be low...

Avner

 

I have a NEC CDRW drive that uses the activity pin. I think it may have been modified to do this by Dell though, as thats what it was ripped out of.

 

my LG goldstar CDRW does !!!
(12*8*32)


Avner