The shitstorm of a fallout has pushed the community behind Billet Labs more than they ever would have gotten had they just gotten reviewed properly. It may have sucked what had happened but I think they will be better off in the long term now that people are aggressively supportive of them. Funny twist of fate in my opinion.
Unless they get the prototype back, even if they get money, they’ve lost the time it takes to reproduce the prototype. Also, if they haven’t gone through the patent process, some larger company with economies of scale could acquire the unit and beat them to market pretty easily. Ideas are hard to develop but easy to copy and improve upon. LTT/LMG selling the prototype instead of returning it to Billet is just absolutely egregious and indefensible. I’m not even sure how it could have been a mistake.
Billet Labs decided that they don’t want it back and just want the compensation instead. They started to make a new prototype as it is likely faster than them getting back the original if at all. Can’t say I blame them.
Yeah, I guess I was assuming the prototype was in a state where it would still work. Doubly shitty to auction off something that you broke for “charity”.
I may be wrong
but didn’t LMG put it in their tormach to shave off THERMAL MASS such that the block didn’t interfere with RAM?They knowingly destroyed a prototype in the video. Off course Billet has to cut their losses with this shit.Edit: I was wrong. See comment below. That happens when you watch a video on second screen :)
I just rewatched to see (wanted a refresher on just how badly they trashed Billet): they machined down the heatsink from the motherboard to make clearance to the Billet Labs block. They didn’t modify the block itself.
Thank you. Thats what I get when I watch videos on a second screen :)
I admit I never watched the original review of the product so… That might be a detail I missed
Where did you read that Billet Labs didn’t want the block back?
Billet Labs made a post on reddit and in that post had a comment update saying this. They mentioned they already had started making a new prototype as they can’t guarantee that it would still be in usable condition as well as some other reasons.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15rxni4/comment/jwbrh0i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
The just seem to have no documentation going on.
They not only accidentally auctioned of the prototype, they also lost the 3090Ti that was send with the prototype, you know the proper card to test that on, they lost the sheet of who they auctioned what to - and that’s just the stuff in this single case. I can only imagine that they just have a single crammed storage room where they just randomly drop things and hope to find them later when they need it.
Considering that it’s normal for their employes to take anything they want home, i doubt they ever had a working inventory system.