It’s just a who do you want to believe game:
I fully agree and you’re free to support whichever side you want. But it would be rash to start throwing out statements without personally doing the diligence on both sides and would only add to the confusion already surrounding the split. The question as to why Miki would be paying for the machines and not the company tells me you haven’t dug deep enough yet.
I understand your points Ryan.
The Aps3000 truly is similar to most cnc machines. locally we have a company that has giant versians of the APS3000 except they use a plasma cutter to shape airline parts. I’m sure Airbus has similar equipment. The point is if we are to have two similar machines for sale what’s stopping a third and a fourth company entering the market all using the same style cutter/and hold down ( nothing is special about any of these, except no one implemented these features before Miki ). The surf industry and its cut throat temperment will no doubt take over driving down the cost of these machines. Good for those in the market to buy, bad for those that have purchased and been guinee pigs, and bad for the sellers of the machines " Less margin ". But I guess if you have little R and D time and money invested you come out ahead anyway. I used a grinder and a flexible carbide disc to shape eps boards well before I ever laid eyes on the APS. " Should I apply for a patent? " Again the patents should not be the true issue. “It would be easy enough to fit a router or spindle motor to the Aku-Shaper with a bit cutter instead of a wheel”.
Should the same idealism apply to surf design software? Most software has been optimized for many other verticles.
If the new AKU Shaper machine is different then what most legacy APS owners have, and if the email I have stating that all upgrades and support will now be handled by APS3000/AKU-Shaper. Then per my original contract I would expect the ( 2 Years of system, parts, upgrades to be applied to my machine immediately! ) as it appears there are upgrades that have taken place and my warranty/service/upgrade 24 month agreement times out in August.
Is the ( Rock Solid Steel frame truly better? Are the components superior in quality and design? What is the real difference?
If so when should I expect Mike Rikard to retrofit my APS3000? Or should I call it AKU-Shaper now? I will gladly pay for his flight and time to retrofit if ( The rock solid frame/components are better )
Things are starting to become clear?
tick tock tick tock…
Matt and Mike,
Why assume that our Aku Shaper machine is the same as APS3000. Yes it looks similar but there are hundreds of industrial machines that look similar. Aku Shaper will be using a different way of leveling the board, it will have a different vacuum cup arrangement, and it will use a different cutting system, none of these can be detailed until our patent application is registered as this would void any possibility of us registering our patent.
Mike Rickard has been actively involved in this project since before even me and my dad were involved (pre 2001). Miki initially contacted Mike’s company to buy parts for the first APS3000 shaping machine he was trying to build. Mike had provided Miki with many ideas as well basic knowledge required for assembling machines. Around this time, Mike had to show Miki how a ball screw should be mounted.
Its logical to conclude that Miki felt that Mike was knowledgeable and his input valuable, as an offer was extended to him to design and fully manufacture the machines. Promises were made to Mike for the building of these machines which required the relocation of his family from Melbourne to the Gold Coast. These promises were not kept by Miki and essentially the original deal was changed on Mike. Eventually, Mike got tired of the deal changing and left. The same is true with me. A few details of this can be seen in a earlier post I wrote.
Miki has painted the picture that it was him working independently locked up in a factory figuring out how to build the machine all by himself, when in actuality there were many people that had input to the design, construction and implementation of the machine.
There is no doubt that now Miki knows a lot about the current machine. He learns fast and is very clever. But it is misleading for him to portray the image that he is sole designer of that machine and owns all the IP.
Miki has also lead people to believe that this was his life’s work and he has sunk his life savings into this project. This is not the case. Significant financial backing was provided by another party, who has been royally shafted. Without that backing, its likely the project would have never got off the ground.
Meanshapes you say the following:
“As a side note… MIki installed our machine in August of 05. The only issue we had was someone forgot to pack the laser guide in the container ( Was not Miki )”
How do you know it was not Miki? It has always been Miki’s responsibility to assemble and pack the laser. There is a photo on his website of him assembling the Dick Smith laser kit. (Dick Smith is similar to a Radio Shack in Australia). Because the laser is fragile it was Miki’s responsibility to take it in his personal luggage. You heard what Miki wanted you to hear. Miki is very good at the blame game. It is also very unprofessional for Miki to be bad mouthing an employee, contracted or not.
Mike Rickard is an easy target for Miki. Many of you don’t know him and have never dealt with him so its easy for Miki to plant the idea of him being an unethical thief. It wasn’t even that long ago that Miki had me believing that Mike is incompetent, lazy and is working for the “enemy”, whoever that is. It was only when I did my diligence about Mike Rickard, did the impression I had of him start changing.
The truth is Mike made sacrifices in order to help Miki get the APS3000 project off the ground, as did many other people. Today Mike is getting bad mouthed.
Now where’s the ethics?
Forgive me if I am not very active on this thread in the future. I feel for the most part, that I have presented our side of the situation to the degree which I feel is appropriate on a public forum. It is futile to get involved in the he said she said shit, and I have been trying hard to avoid that.
I am happy to answer questions over email.
Jimmy Freese
One thing’s for sure, there’s no Cliffs Notes required for Jimmy’s version–no red wine, no purple poetics, no oblique/esoteric symbolism, no Shakespearean drama, no insanity and not much ego evident. No pseudonyms. No birds. No toads. No crowns.
Also a sure thing is that you can “know” someone and not know what they’re really about/capable of until other people’s (your) money or IP is involved.
my .02
Greg
PS oh and we’d all be better off if everybody had to make their own damn surfboards or get them from a guy in your own neighborhood–call me a Luddite
So does this mean that we will get the updated aps3000 software with the 3-D controller view as shown on your website? As Mike said, we are supposed to get software and hardware upgrades as they occur for a specified period, even though you have split aren’t you still responsible for the software portion? Now that the split is done, are the aps3000 owners left holding the bag? This isn’t a he said/she said question, just one that seems to be avoided right now…
Jimmy,
I appreciate your response. My last thought’s.
The software contract with you should be honored along with any other contractual agreements you made, as an original APS3000 project partner…
If any or all is true… Then all who is involved should take responsibility and be held accountable for their actions, any deceit, and ALL contract obligations to the pre akubird-APS3000 customers.
" This would be understood as all the alleged people involved, name on the website or not "
My thoughts,
Mike
You cant have 2 companies potentially honoring these contracts.
The Miki company has made a bold statement about continuing with Shape3D
and distributing freely that software.
Time will tell.
I give it 60 days for the clutter to clear.
I noticed MIKI site has list of APS CNC owners that the customer/shaper base can find.
I couldnt find one at the Freese site…unless I’m missing something…sometimes omissions are telling.
As mentioned in the email I sent to existing APS3000 machine owners, the change will in no way compromise the expertise or customer support
that is offered to our existing clients. As the person who built all of those machines, Mike is qualified to handle all service and support questions and will do so. Some of you have mentioned you have been happy with the way Miki has dealt with your problems in the past. As a person who is knowledgeable about the workings of the existing APS3000 machines, Miki is is also qualified to field your questions. Currently Mike, Ralph and I are partnered and I can only speak about the agreements they have made to the partnership.
To clear up any confusion, the screenshots you see on our website of the controller software are just that, the controller software. That is something that comes with the purchase of the controller. Our software designs surfboards and only interfaces with the controller in the form of a cutting file. An upgrade of the controller upgrades the corresponding software.
Advancement to future machines will keep progressing, as has been done in the past. If an improvement makes sense to existing APS3000 owners, cost/benefit sense, they will be informed and presented a choice.
With regard to our software, all pre-existing agreements will of course be honored. We plan on moving forward with new features and improvements.
On that note, to everyone currently using what is known as the APS3000 software, we put some video tutorials on our website.
http://aps3000.com/software.php?p=tutorials
They came out a little weird, but hopefully helpful to some. I’m taking suggestions for tutorials for other features not currently detailed there.
There are a couple features there that you don’t have yet. We are almost finished with the final details of those. If we don’t have an upgrade in 10 working days, feel free to blow up my inbox, as we’ve been meaning to get this out for a little while now, small kine side tracked lately.
And no, there are no intentions to hijack your computer, add a virus or anything of that nature. Hopefully just make the board design process a little easier.
I will post to this site the details of the new features when we do that.
Jimmy Freese
thanks…good to hear about the APS3000 shapers software.
I am ramping up to use it.
Miki hires Mike who has zero experience in surfboard shaping machines, while Miki has zero experience with CNC machines, to (help him?) design and build shaping machines. After six years gaining experience in designing and manufacturing a variety of shaping systems, building and designing these machines on contract by Miki, Mike owns all the copyright and IP for them while Miki has a patent application for them. Then Mike starts to build a different machine that looks the same only made out of steel, which requires new patents to be applied for, yet it moves the blank just like described in Miki’s patent. It smells a bit fishy to me.
The big question for me though, and possibly a few other swaylockians, is the program formerly known as APS3000 still going to be free for non-machine owners?
regards,
Håvard
Ya gots to love the social dynamics at play here! I wonder if snow and kiteboarders brawl as much as us surfing brethren. For a living, I write software that interfaces with machines, currently a MRI system. The hardware is useless without the software. Concurrently, the software can only be as good as the hardware, this means if the hardware sucks there’s not much the software can do to improve things. I claim that the software is more important than the hardware. The customers interaction with the system is through the software. The peeps designing surfboards don’t even see a machine, nor should they care. I also claim it is much easier to adapt existing software to new hardware as opposed to making new hardware compatible with existing software. No doubt there are many technical subtleties in the hardware to make it work as well as it does. But, and it’s a big but, essentially the machine is a collection of lead screws, motors, and a motion controller, along with assorted relays for vacuum etc. This is no great feat, thousands of engineers design this kind of stuff on a daily basis. Have you ever watched the tele program “How it’s Made”? There, you’ll see hundreds of custom computer controlled systems. Most of which were designed and built on a contract basis with full ownership of concept and design being held by the purchaser. If I have to pick someone to back in this saga, I’m going with the guy who writes the software that converts the surfboard design to machine tool paths. If they can get the APS3000 to output in Autocad format, who cares what machine will cut the blank?
Miki hires Mike who has zero experience in surfboard shaping machines, while Miki has zero experience with CNC machines, to (help him?) design and build shaping machines. After six years gaining experience in designing and manufacturing a variety of shaping systems, building and designing these machines on contract by Miki, Mike owns all the copyright and IP for them while Miki has a patent application for them. Then Mike starts to build a different machine that looks the same only made out of steel, which requires new patents to be applied for, yet it moves the blank just like described in Miki’s patent. It smells a bit fishy to me.
Thank you, for the succinct summary…
I was wondering what this was all about…
I have an idea…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
Let’s go surfing…!!!..
No, not fishy.
Yes, software still free.
" No, not fishy. Yes, software still free."
Great!
Now, can someone please tell me what version we should be on? And how the hell do I get those bottom contours correct?
Ya gots to love the social dynamics at play here! I wonder if snow and kiteboarders brawl as much as us surfing brethren. For a living, I write software that interfaces with machines, currently a MRI system. The hardware is useless without the software. Concurrently, the software can only be as good as the hardware, this means if the hardware sucks there’s not much the software can do to improve things. I claim that the software is more important than the hardware. The customers interaction with the system is through the software. The peeps designing surfboards don’t even see a machine, nor should they care. I also claim it is much easier to adapt existing software to new hardware as opposed to making new hardware compatible with existing software. No doubt there are many technical subtleties in the hardware to make it work as well as it does. But, and it’s a big but, essentially the machine is a collection of lead screws, motors, and a motion controller, along with assorted relays for vacuum etc. This is no great feat, thousands of engineers design this kind of stuff on a daily basis. Have you ever watched the tele program “How it’s Made”? There, you’ll see hundreds of custom computer controlled systems. Most of which were designed and built on a contract basis with full ownership of concept and design being held by the purchaser. If I have to pick someone to back in this saga, I’m going with the guy who writes the software that converts the surfboard design to machine tool paths. If they can get the APS3000 to output in Autocad format, who cares what machine will cut the blank?
I know what its all about…
We all stink and quoted Scott above and I share the same stink.
…both software engineers.
But it didnt take me a dedicated post and 30 minutes
of my time to let you know what my aroma is like.
All of that could be abbreviated to about the 6 lines that I have wrote.
An interesting aspect of this story is different people’s views on the history of the project, to see how the stories have changed check:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.aps3000.com
Make up your own minds
Secondly, those who where contracted to make the software are now working together with the guy who was contracted to build the machines, to make a competing product.
Nothing fishy indeed.
I’m so glad I don’t work in the surfboard industry.
No, not contracted. I was a director/partner, for the last 5 years, in all arrangements.
Thank you very much Jimmy for the many nice words, half truths and lies. One day you will have to back what you said with substance and proof. But for now I only want to clear up one of your creations, one you certainly thought I never could proof wrong. You stated:
Meanshapes you say the following:
“As a side note… MIki installed our machine in August of 05. The only issue we had was someone forgot to pack the laser guide in the container (Was not Miki)”
How do you know it was not Miki? It has always been Miki’s responsibility to assemble and pack the laser. There is a photo on his website of him assembling the Dick Smith laser kit. (Dick Smith is similar to a Radio Shack in Australia). Because the laser is fragile it was Miki’s responsibility to take it in his personal luggage. You heard what Miki wanted you to hear. Miki is very good at the blame game. It is also very unprofessional for Miki to be bad mouthing an employee, contracted or not.
Does that not make me look very bad? Blaming others for my failures? And all is said and done with in a few sentences. How could I ever proof this story to be wrong? I can Jimmy, I can.
The Laser is part of the APS3000 Machine delivery and not my hand luggage. It is on the APS3000 Delivery List and marked, dated and signed by the person in charge when the machine is packed for shipping. I have published one of those delivery lists on my website for everybody to see in all detail under Pictures and Screenshots. All we have to do is find out who signs with MR… not a hard nut to crack. I have many of these delivery lists as one was made for every machine.
This will not work Jimmy, too many people know the truth. Everything you say and do that you can not support with evidence will speak against you. Hard evidence, not he said - she said nonsense. You will learn in due course how well I can defend myself.
Your story has changed a lot in the past few weeks. From your first statement here on Swaylocks to the mail you did send to customers and whoever to your statements now. And then there is your website with a different angle again.
About your website, you show beautiful photos of well finished boards.
Are you sure they are cut on the Aku shaper? They look very good, the
balsa sheet too, con-gratulation…
Quote:No doubt there are many technical subtleties in the hardware to make it work as well as it does. But, and it’s a big but, essentially the machine is a collection of lead screws, motors, and a motion controller, along with assorted relays for vacuum etc. This is no great feat…
But then again, software is just a bunch of zeros and ones. Even I can write that…
I do agree though, that the designer shouldn’t have to worry about what machine is used. Neither should the machine owner have to worry about which software the designer is using. If the result of all this is that Mikis machine will work with several different types of software, and the former APS software will work with several different machines, then I think this breakup is a good thing. If the software continuous to be restricted to one machine and the Aku shaper is just a steel version of the original machine, then I think it is sad.
Remember that it is not the machine neither the software that is the a shapers most valuable asset, but the designs. Make sure those don’t depend on a single software or machine, and demand that the system you buy is compatible with industrial standards like IGES, STEP, and G-code…
/Jonas