Selling etiquette and "host ownership"

lazeerer said:

I put a Crap load of time in my Work, research, finding them etc etc. If you cant respect that its your choose. Ive never asked for much and none of the other sellers have either but respect what they do and find your own.

There is Millions of hosts Out there There is Less then 10 that I care about at this Point that i have done so far.

Iam Not saying you cannot sell what you want at the end its your choose and your going to do what you want.
However I fallowed this when i sold same as other sellers that start to sell and i still fallow it today.. It was Here before i started. There for i will respect that.

tsteele93 You can do what you feel is the best thing to do after reading my PM how us sellers Respect each other. THat is the only thing i can say.

:beer:

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Yeah... there are a lot of other hosts out there...

@steele93...

I suggest modifying the similar hosts you have on hand
and sell them as something different...
(I'm sure you didn't buy 1000 pieces).
Then you can find a unique personal "signature" host for
other builds to sell.

Jerry

@lazeerer (just cause I don't wanna quote your huge post lol)

I don't think anybody would copy signature hosts . Like I said you rhd and dtr are the only people really pioneering new hosts. And dtr doesn't care but I doubt anybody would be copying your alls signature hosts that you have only sold one or two of ever.

Maybe while I was gone I missed somebody copying signature hosts? Common hosts get sold on here everyday as lasers like the c6... Etc etc, those are 110% fair game with no thought of stepping on anyone's toes if you decide to build and sell one

I can see issues where someone copies someone elses findings, measurements, heatsink dimensions etc. But if someone gets pissed off because someone else started selling complete lasers in the same hosts, cmon I thought we were adults! This has shit to do with respect, but apparently its all about money. Why else would a builder even care?! If the seller made that host from scratch and introduced it to the market himself - then ALL rights go to that person. Discovering a host does not give you exclusive rights to sell that host, no matter how you look at it.

So all in all, my oppinion, is that if you find a host you like - regardless of who the hell is selling them - do the same. But DO NOT copy measurements and or components. Make your own discoveries and do your own homework when it comes to heatsinks etc.

If people wouldnt want you to use similar drivers etc. well then they should, if they are producing them, stop selling them to the public and only use them in own builds and stuff like that.

Just my thoughts.

tsteele93 said:

So NewGuy890 buys some hosts, waits several weeks for them to arrive and maybe has holdups with customs, etc.

During this time, he sees RespectedGuy123 post some lasers for sale. Some of them are in the same hosts he has ordered recently.

Should NewGuy890 just eat these hosts? Is there a "first come, you own the rights to that host" etiquette in place?

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I'm not a machinist myself, so for me to go from "purchase host" to "final build" will always take me about 3 weeks (at minimum) longer than someone else who can machine a sink themselves.

The reality?

I eat hosts.

It happens. You see something, order it, and then in the intervening time someone else puts up a beautiful build thread. If I see that someone else has posted a new host as a "signature build" (a label I would give to a host that is new/unique and hasn't been used on the forum previously), then I won't build in it. Occasionally I've done someone else's build, with the original builder's permission first. But even then, there has always been some reason behind it (like perhaps someone that I have a history of building with, wants something particular built by me), and in such a circumstance I've generally sought permission first. Regardless, the reality is that a lot of hosts go unused. It happens to me a lot. I'm in Canada, shipping takes extra long, and I then also need to measure up hosts, draw out the dimensions, and get a machinist to build and ship me heatsinks. Nevertheless, I routinely abort builds when someone else beats me to the punch. There are really two sides to not wanting to build in someone else's signature host:

1) I wouldn't want to, for my own sake. It's not creative. It's not unique.

2) I wouldn't want to, out of respect for the original seller. Just like this process costs me a lot of time (looking for hosts) and money (ordering hosts that don't work), so too does it cost everyone else a lot of time and money too. To then duplicate someone else's build, just doesn't feel right to me.

So how do you deal with this? For one, factor it in to the cost of R&D (really just "R" here - research). Finding hosts is part of the cost of bringing new unique builds to the forum. Also, and I'm dead serious about this, start buying some extra batteries and chargers so that you can give away flashlights to your family for Birthdays / Christmas / Hanukkah / Buddhist Love Day.

Of course, in a strictly technical sense, all of the ^ is "optional". There's no law that I'm aware of, dealing with recycling of hosts into lasers It's unspoken etiquette. I didn't immediately understand it when I was super green at LPF, but you'll grow to recognize that you're much better off working in a way that doesn't piss off your co-LPFers.

Agree'd^

I will resort back to what I said a few posts up and just say, if you are unsure, or know someone has used the host before, just simply ASK them if they care that you sell a build using a host they previously used.

Also agree ^

There are so many hosts to choose from and if you are going to invent your own parts anyway, then you might as well go with a commonly used host, or why not pioneer a new signature build yourself ;-)

Well, here is my situation. At no point did I see someone's signature build and think, "I'll find that and copy it."

What happened is that I apparently stumbled on a site that a respected builder who had been here for a couple of years had been ordering hosts from and on my newness - had not seen that they had offered this for sale before.

Having not seen their post before, I designed my own heat sink out of a different material, purchased some automotive paint that I thought would compliment the build nicely and was going to put it together for sale.

Then I found out that not only did another builder make this before me, but it is a "signature build."

And I did ask and was pretty much told what has been said in the previous post, that technically I can do what I want, but if I want the respect of the builders on the board then I should not sell them.

The fact that I PM'd this person and asked here on the board shows that I am trying to do the right thing. But my situation is different than some of the others here.

I have no intention of making this a serious money making hobby. I have a full-time job that pays the bills and I don't plan on selling $400+ lasers. I just wanted to try some interesting builds for kicks and sell them at cost or a little above to justify the piddling around.

There is no way I could ever recoup what I have spent so far on this forum. There is hardly a person here that sells stuff here that I haven't bought a bunch of stuff from, whether it is diodes, drivers, flux, wires, lenses hosts, lasers, you frickin name it - I have bought it in preparation for doing some builds.

My goal was to make some interesting lasers.

No disrespect intended, but I'm sure that there are almost as many C6 lasers in existence now as there are flashlights. (exaggeration, but you get my point). My hope was to find something interesting to sell.

To those who say, "find your own signature build" I challenge you to do it! There are a million flashlights, but there aren't very many flashlights that are interesting! A lot of the ones that are, end up being too small for anything that would sell.

Plus you have certain people who are in an elite group who manage to get 512nm diodes and ultra exotic diodes that no one else can get. Good for you, that is an accomplishment that had to take a lot of work and I mean that sincerely. But what is left for someone new?

Someone new can sell Jayrob kits which I personally think are best left for the up and coming laser builder. Or they can TRY to break even on C6's or similar hosts. It is rather frustrating.

I personally think as long as you aren't copying the person's BUILD (aka stealing their drivers, stealing heat sink measurements (how hard is it to measure what you need for a heat sink?) etc... Then I don't see why a host isn't fair game. Anyone can buy it. It's a flashlight for goodness sake!

Then capitalism can work its magic... If you want a laser in XXX host, you can buy for RespectedGuy890 for more money and know it is a top notch laser with modes and custom drivers, etc... Or you can take a chance with NewGuy123 and get the same host for less money and maybe no modes and a flex drive.

That was my thinking.

However, since there is a protectionist attitude here, what are the rules? How many signature hosts can one builder have? How does the builder mark a host as a signature? What are the rules?

Thanks,

tsteele93 said:

However, since there is a protectionist attitude here, what are the rules? How many signature hosts can one builder have? How does the builder mark a host as a signature? What are the rules?

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Well... that's one of our recurring issues. There aren't really any set-in-stone rules, only unspoken ones.

Put in your place...

1) If I thought I might be stepping on someone's toes, I'd talk to them.
2) If I talked to them and they didn't want me to do X, I would bag the project.

That will definitely earn you equity with the people here, which in the long run I think would outweigh the financial inconvenience.

As for how many "signature" builds someone is allowed to have, it's sort of like porn in the eyes of the Supreme Court - you'll know it when you see it. If you think someone has an unreasonable amount of "signature" builds, they probably have an unreasonable amount of "signature" builds.

Granted, this is all from my outsider's perspective on the market, which, depending on who you ask, is alternatively the best or worst perspective...

Trevor

tsteele93 said:

To those who say, "find your own signature build" I challenge you to do it! There are a million flashlights, but there aren't very many flashlights that are interesting! A lot of the ones that are, end up being too small for anything that would sell.

Plus you have certain people who are in an elite group who manage to get 512nm diodes and ultra exotic diodes that no one else can get. Good for you, that is an accomplishment that had to take a lot of work and I mean that sincerely. But what is left for someone new?

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Finding weird things like 512nm diodes is just like finding unique hosts. It doesn't take any eliteness, it just takes time, persistence, and some dedication to staying organized and on top of things.

It's just not true that there aren't very many flashlights that are interesting. There are lots of hosts on my radar that I'd love to build in if I had time (and less of a collection of hosts already waiting for my attention now). The hosts are out there, and you can get creative too. I've built in lots of things that aren't "flashlights from China". Another approach that I often take to avoid the issues discussed in this thread, is to try and stick to hosts that other people don't want to build in for some reason - generally because they're tough to build in, or require some sort of creative non-standard driver setup.

In terms of how many signature builds someone can have, I think that's a question without an answer. I don't see why anyone couldn't have a large number of signature builds. But I also don't think every build someone does (even when it IS a new host) is a signature build. For example, this popped up on DX this week:
NEW-655 Cree XR-E Q5 300-Lumen 3-Mode White Light Zoom LED Flashlight w/ Strap - Black (1 x 18650) - Free Shipping - DealExtreme

Suppose I grabbed that host and built a 445 in it. It's a new host and nobody on the forum has built in it before. But would I consider that a "signature build" ? No. It's basically just another typical "Trust/Spider/Ultra Fire" type 18650 flashlight. Sure it's new to the forum, but I don't think that's a "signature build".

It's hard to define a "signature build". I think it's much like Justice Stewart's famous quote:

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [signature build]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the [host] involved in this case is not that."

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A signature build is something that people look at and say "oh cool, that's new". If people look at a build and think "that's neat, but it's just another typical looking china host", then I don't think something counts as a signature build, and it's fair game for anyone to build in.

EDIT:

Holy crap! What are the chances that we'd use the same famous quote, in the same thread, but to refer to different aspects of the topic?

Trevor said:

As for how many "signature" builds someone is allowed to have, it's sort of like porn in the eyes of the Supreme Court - you'll know it when you see it. If you think someone has an unreasonable amount of "signature" builds, they probably have an unreasonable amount of "signature" builds.

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Wow... great minds think alike

It's tricky. It does suck though that you could earn disrespect for using a modified flashlight host that somebody has already used because it could be the sexiest host you have ever laid eyes on, but is now automatically off the market unless you don't care about the respect(or disrespect you may incur)

You could keep them as personal builds.

Trevor said:

Well... that's one of our recurring issues. There aren't really any set-in-stone rules, only unspoken ones.

Put in your place...

1) If I thought I might be stepping on someone's toes, I'd talk to them.
2) If I talked to them and they didn't want me to do X, I would bag the project.

That will definitely earn you equity with the people here, which in the long run I think would outweigh the financial inconvenience.

As for how many "signature" builds someone is allowed to have, it's sort of like porn in the eyes of the Supreme Court - you'll know it when you see it. If you think someone has an unreasonable amount of "signature" builds, they probably have an unreasonable amount of "signature" builds.
Trevor

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For someone who I was arguing with in another section of the forum to the extent that daguin had to call us out you sure make a lot of sense here. I'm going to go with this for now.

But eventually I wonder when we will cross the other subject with how many signature builds can you have?

As I told the builder in my PM to him,

"...your link shows that you have building it for a while. So I wont sell those on the forum. "

jakeGT said:

It's tricky. It does suck though that you could earn disrespect for using a modified flashlight host that somebody has already used because it could be the sexiest host you have ever laid eyes on, but is now automatically off the market unless you don't care about the respect(or disrespect you may incur)

You could keep them as personal builds.

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Yeah, but I'm gonna have two big black personal builds and a stainless personal build all with the same diode in them. Lol.

I think that I will gift them to some people that will appreciate them. :san:

I stopped arguing this point a while back, but I like the attitude mentioned by a couple of sellers posting in this thread...

The point of view, that it comes down to common courtesy towards other sellers.

In the past, I have never tried to say it was a matter of legality, because it is not.

I think it just comes down to whether or not the seller wants to be 'friendly' towards the other seller or not. Do they care how the other seller feels about it or not. Would they do that to their friend?

There are still a few sellers here that are showing common courtesy and respect to each other in a 'friendly' manner.

There are also others that have the 'dog eat dog' viewpoint because there is no legality issue involved. They don't really care if the other seller may have spent years making a particular host popular.

I guess it just comes down to what kind of person you are inside.

But as was mentioned, there are plenty of hosts out there...

There is No Limit on how Many Signature builds someone can have. The More Builds you do and the more time you invest in finding them them more you get.

However It Might reach a Point down the Line that someone does not care to much for the Signature Build and Just Gives the OK. In other words Normal THe More you do the earlier ones tend to fall back out.

All You got to do is Ask.

As rhd has said. Commonly host that someone does is up for grabs. However What he left out its always good to ask the seller.

Iam Not talking about Commonly available as in you can buy kits now for them. Iam Talking about host that have never been done on the forum and are Still New but does not mean so much to the builder.

Most of the time >90% of the time when you ask they say Sure go ahead. The Only time that i have have asked and they declined was that they had plain to do stuff further with it. But its Rare.

In about 1 hour i can find >20 Unique hosts that No one has used or probably even seen before Except for a Few People. Its really not hard to find them. Its actually part of the fun but very time consuming.

rhd said:

Finding weird things like 512nm diodes is just like finding unique hosts. It doesn't take any eliteness, it just takes time, persistence, and some dedication to staying organized and on top of things.

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Please note, I did not post that in a derogatory way. Just the opposite. I have a great deal of respect for the people that can stay on top of things and get limited quantities of rare diodes. I assume it takes a lot of effort to build a network of people who will go out of their way to help you with things like that.

It's just not true that there aren't very many flashlights that are interesting. There are lots of hosts on my radar that I'd love to build in if I had time (and less of a collection of hosts already waiting for my attention now). The hosts are out there, and you can get creative too.

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Well I respectfully point out that I have looked all over and somehow managed to duplicate several hosts that are already built here. You may be absolutely right, but I haven't managed to find them yet.

I sent DTR a PM about how many hosts that I have seen that looked really cool and in my excitement I added them to the cart, only to find that when they arrived that the host was smaller than my pinkie finger!

I've built in lots of things that aren't "flashlights from China". Another approach that I often take to avoid the issues discussed in this thread, is to try and stick to hosts that other people don't want to build in for some reason - generally because they're tough to build in, or require some sort of creative non-standard driver setup.

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Honestly, I don't think that I'm quite there yet. I'm going to start of walking before running. Flashlight hosts are great because they are already made to do most of what we are doing - shooting light out of an aperture. They need some heat sinking and minor modding and you have a nice laser.

I've been thinking about a lathe, but again, I need to walk before I run. But it sucks to get tripped up so much just trying to walk!

In terms of how many signature builds someone can have, I think that's a question without an answer. I don't see why anyone couldn't have a large number of signature builds.

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There really should IMHO be a limit there. One person shouldn't be able to stake claims to dozens of flashlights and claim them as their own. There has to be a point where another builder would just say, "ok, hate me - I don't care what you think - I'm selling these."

You can't claim everything!

I will say this right now, Anything I build that is from a flashlight host or similar type commercially available host is fair game to anyone else who wants it and I will provide a link to the host.

For me it boils down to personal beliefs. I believe in freedom of competition. If I make a laser from a host and sell it and you think you can make a laser from that host and somehow better my design - then that is good for the hobby. Maybe you can make it cheaper? Maybe you can make it polished. Maybe you can make it with a better driver? I don't care.

I do not need, or believe in, protection.

I do not mean that as a slam to those who feel differently. I am a libertarian person and my personal beliefs are very strong in live and let live.

So the forum does not run that way and I respect that. But I just want to be clear about MY situation and stay true to MY belief system in allowing anyone to have access to any host I may find and use.

I do believe in intellectual property and I don't think it is right to steal things other people have designed or own. But flashlights are a commercially available product available to anyone and I do not believe it is right to monopolize one.

rhd said:

There are lots of hosts on my radar that I'd love to build in if I had time (and less of a collection of hosts already waiting for my attention now).

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I am with you on that one. Also there are also lots of hosts that I have ordered and while waiting to get them, get a heatsink made for them and find time to put up a thread someone else has already beat me too it.

In my previous post I was pointing out that is my view on the host that I have introduced. I completely understand sellers that put a lot of time and energy into a design just to have someone come along and make a cheap copy of it. I am not a host kit seller so that probably influences my opinion. I will say just about everybody that has sold units that I have introduced have contacted me asking if it was ok which is a show of courtesy that I did not expect but it gave me a lot of respect for them.:beer: