litster wrote:Laggy, you said it yourself, in Chinese:
过后几个礼拜河马问我规格，想自己山寨
After a few weeks, Hippo asked me about the measurements, thinking to make copies.
我说要么你借我朋友那套吧
I said if you want you can borrow the case from my friend
过后几天mkc＂研发＂了透明外壳
a few days later, mkc "developed" a new clear acrylic case
I asked Hippo, he said he did indeed told mkc the measurements
问过河马，他说他的确告诉过mkc尺寸规格
I asked Hippo, he said he did indeed told mkc the measurements and specifications
我本意的确是想弄个便宜的透明外壳
My original idea really was to create a cheap transparent case

There are 2 issues here. One, you sent my case over to China with the intension to copy it. That you said it yourself.
That you did not tell me when you bought the cases from me. That, you lied to me.

Second issue is whether MKC copied my design or not. No one has MKC’s case now, so everything is speculative. But with the pictures shown, MKC’s case is almost an exact match to my design. Sure, Koreans have been making acrylic cases. They have been making cases for their custom keyboards with a flat PCB bottom. They do not need to accommodate Filco’s USB cable plug or Phantom’s Teensy controller. As far as I know, no one made any acrylic cases specifically for Filco, let alone Phantom. If there were any, I haven’t seen them. No one else except BiNiaRiS and I have Phantom. Why would MKC make a cut on that middle bottom plate to accommodate Phantom’s Teensy control, which is on the opposite side of the Filco USB connector on the PCB?

Another obvious indication is the frosted area on the top plate, above the arrow cluster and below the 6-pack. If you don’t have a Filco, you would not know why that area is thinner on my acrylic case. It is thinner because Filco’s controller is at that location, sticking out over the mounting plate. The controller actually pushed the top acrylic plate up in that area, and it bugged the hell out of me, although you wouldn’t notice it if I didn’t tell you. More importantly, due to the wide margin of acrylic thickness specification, this is not a problem if the *second* acrylic layer is 1/32” thicker. Yes, only 1/32” difference, less than .8mm. But that is enough to change the top acrylic plate from flat to popping up. I didn’t design the case to have that area made thinner until very, very late, only a week before my cases went into production. To make it thinner, material is removed. With clear acrylic, you can see that area is no longer transparent after material is removed. With opaque acrylic, you can’t see the difference. Somehow MKC’s case also has that area made thinner, even though PLU doesn’t have its controller sticking up over the mounting plate.

All that above isn’t really necessary, as you already said that MKC has the measurements and specifications to my case from Hippo, who got that information from your friend in China. That is enough to implicate.

Feng got caught in this only because he wanted to resell cases from MKC without knowing how it came about. He is just an innocent bystander who just wanted to make a buck and bring some cool keyboard stuff over from China.

I am not happy that you, from the get go, wanted to make copies of my case without telling me. You tried to downplay the significance of getting the design to MKC. And you now are saying MKC didn’t copy my design by providing pictures of the KMAC cases, which doesn’t really prove any point.

Let’s pretend all this didn’t happen. My original intention to design a case was to have a case option for people who are building Phantom without a Filco case. I was able to desing one, but I wasn’t able to make it at a reasonable price. If I knew someone in China who could make this case with my design for this cheap, I would have included it in the Phantom group buy. If the end result of all this is getting reasonably priced acrylic cases for the keyboard community for the Phantom project, my original goal would be accomplished.

Once people have tested this case from China, if it is good quality at a reasonable price, I would be happy to see a group buy organized around this case from China.