Ipk screens

[trikey]

Gents, can I intervene a moment, Rick I realise that you have put many many hours of work into your business but knowing Howard, I can honestly say that he means no malice to you or would wish to undermine your business at all, Howard is a very very talented engineer amongst other things and only seeks to do things for the benefit of others.

I see this as no different to having many T4 traders on the club, let the members decide who they want to go to for their services.

[COLVERT]

Personally I see this as----Rick--No personal risk.


DIY. Considerable risk unless you are very good at delicate soldering.


Bit of a no-brainer really.

Also Rick's lengthy explanation impressed me greatly.--

If I need to get mine done then for certain Rick's the man.---

[Dorchester2]

I was very pleased as well by Rick's job. Moreover he freely added the speed display I hadn't previously.
I don't remember how much exactly it costed me (I sent my block & return, because I'm in France) but after 20 years the genuine screen was nearly illegible and I assume (and hope!) Rick's job may last several years and possibly as long as the previous screen life. Hence what Rick has charged for his good work doesn't look at all extortionate.
Anyway if somebody else is keen to challenge his skilful job, why not.
However no reason here for escalation of hassles & bickering.
Let's keep in mind the only interest of the club and its members to keep & maintain as long as possible our prides & joys.
Cheers!

[Rick-sta]

Originally Posted by trikey

Gents, can I intervene a moment, Rick I realise that you have put many many hours of work into your business but knowing Howard, I can honestly say that he means no malice to you or would wish to undermine your business at all, Howard is a very very talented engineer amongst other things and only seeks to do things for the benefit of others.

I see this as no different to having many T4 traders on the club, let the members decide who they want to go to for their services.

Oh his intention and problem is very crystal clear in his comment here:

All i will say is look carefully at the image in the listing and compare it with the image of more expensive items being sold to members

And here

The facts are clear to me .Profiteering at excessive levels and sour grapes when someone tries to HELP members.

This is in no way the same as two t4 operations in different parts of the country offering their regional services. Howard is not a business trying to compete with me. He's effectively offering a product at factory cost in his spare time which I put a hell of a lot of time and effort into having remanufactured. I cannot in any way way compete with that when I'm a business.

That is the same as someone setting up down the road from you and offering all your services with no labour charge so doing everything at cost of parts.

He knows exactly what he's doing, and as I said he can feel free to do so.

[edwardmk]

HI Rick,

This has reminded me, I need to order a new IPK screen for the ZT-T.
Going to be a full day when I come to visit Rick

[tantallon]

Thank You for all your comments .As i stated at the on set .i had no intention of making this venture either a business or a profit making entity.However it seems that there is certainly a market out there for repair replacement and upgrades to vehicles ,After discussions with contacts both in China and the U.K it has been decided to take this project further .It wont be limited to just MG/ROVER It will encompass all marques .Most of the facilities are already in place including 4 mobile electrical component repair vans and one central workshop .Due to the volumes that are expected the prices for components/repairs should fall slightly .I will keep you all updated and will register as a trader once everything is in place .The business will have fully certificated technicians ,calibrated tooling and will have full liability insurance.

[Rick-sta]

Originally Posted by edwardmk

HI Rick,

This has reminded me, I need to order a new IPK screen for the ZT-T.
Going to be a full day when I come to visit Rick

No problem mate just bring the ZT-T cluster with you when you bring the v8 down

[sln8458]

I have been following this tread and have a question/observation.


If I have understood Rick correctly, without his input there would be NO screens, period, end of.......
If that is the case, then those for sale elsewhere must come from his supplier using the knowledge he provided. Now any business with such specialised knowledge would protect that with IP/copy right/etc etc. If it were me I would have sent a strongly worded email to the supplier asking what gives?


I run my own business, so who makes what profit is a place I do not go.


SteveN

[macafee2]

Originally Posted by sln8458

I have been following this tread and have a question/observation.


If I have understood Rick correctly, without his input there would be NO screens, period, end of.......
If that is the case, then those for sale elsewhere must come from his supplier using the knowledge he provided. Now any business with such specialised knowledge would protect that with IP/copy right/etc etc. If it were me I would have sent a strongly worded email to the supplier asking what gives?


I run my own business, so who makes what profit is a place I do not go.


SteveN

and still the ipk screens are on ebay.

When it comes to profit, I see stuff on ebay that I know how much they were originally sold for, I see how much they are on sale for now and think rip off. I even have an example of these items and I still think rip off.
In 2019 I offered a scalextric collection for sale, insurance value £28,000, under insured.
I was offered £16,000. I thought rip off. My wife sold half my collection on ebay for £16,000. The more valuable half we still have. With things I know about I do consider the profit people seem to be making.

macafee2

[Rick-sta]

Originally Posted by sln8458

I have been following this tread and have a question/observation.


If I have understood Rick correctly, without his input there would be NO screens, period, end of.......
If that is the case, then those for sale elsewhere must come from his supplier using the knowledge he provided. Now any business with such specialised knowledge would protect that with IP/copy right/etc etc. If it were me I would have sent a strongly worded email to the supplier asking what gives?


I run my own business, so who makes what profit is a place I do not go.


SteveN

Thanks Steven, yes what you've said there is correct. Whilst the manufacturer had the tooling and facilities to produce these screens, they had no data on the electronic chip build into the ribbon cable and therefore could not replicate it.

This manufacturer was the first one I contacted to try and have them made in 2018 and they said they couldn't do it. I then contacted several manufacturers in the EU, a few of which said they could produce it and one sounded very promising, but then stumbled with the same problem regarding the chip. Best they could do is remanufacture the screen with a whole new design and required large minimum order quantities and significant up front tooling investment which would never have been viable.

About a year had passed by this point before I got back in touch with the Manufacturer in China, who advised what data they were missing to remanufacture them. Eventually after putting many more hours into this by luck I was able to find that the same section of the ribbon cable was used in a 1980's calculator display and I was able to obtain the data info for that, some of you may remember this from my post about the screens in my thread last year.

Many more months went by before the first prototype samples were produced, some of which were sent to me to trial. Done quite a bit of testing with these and there were issues with them. The displays had brightness and clarity issues when fitted to our clusters and would fade in brightness as they got warmer. For some reason the early screens worked perfectly fine on the chinese MG7 clusters but didn't on ours. The joint on the ribbon cable which causes the lines on our screens was still poor on the prototypes and during my tests I found the screens would quickly start show lines.

After a few samples being sent with tweaks which still had issues, I sent UK instrument clusters to China for them to use to test the screens to solve the remaining problems. Eventually they got it right which I was able to test on our 3 cars here. Those 3 screens have gone through the heatwaves in the summer last year and the cold temperatures we've had this winter and still work perfectly. Heat and sold is what causes the lines on the old original screens.

So quite a lot of time went into this all of which goes unpaid during the development process since I'm self employed and this is my sole income. I'm not earning a nice comfortable safe salary that still pays me when I'm spending time on things like this and the heated windscreens I'm still working on and need to put more time into. Time away from doing headlights and other orders spent on projects like this is time unpaid.


I never wanted or asked for any exclusivity to the supply of these screens. Besides there would have been no way to prevent them from selling them on themselves anyway. There's a large market in Asia with MG7s who need them as well, I can't help those due to shipping costs between here and there. I just wanted to get them made as there was no other solution to sort the lines on pixelated IPK screens. The deline service I offer is pretty 50/50 in how well it works which I say up front to anyone who goes for that option, one of the reasons I charge so little for a deline repair. But as these cars are getting older and screens are getting worse less and less of these seem to be lasting very well after a deline repair. Only other solution would have been to start downgrading clusters to lowline ones once the screens become unreadable. And a unreadable screen is a MOT failure as the rear fog light warning would no longer be readable.