Beware to buy MCU from Nicholas

[pablo72]

helo forum.

I will tell my sad experience in making business with Nicholas.
Before months, I decided to buy the king 4.1 MCU program from him.
Well the MCU not worked and the LCD not worked. I told he about it.
Then in the begin he wrote to me and told to perform tests. First I checked circuit. All correct. Then I replaced LCD. Nothing happened. Then he sent me another short program just to test the circuit. I bought new blank MCU and record program in it. It worked.
So I record video and showed Nicholas. I asked him to send another MCU but would not pay for another because neiter me or Nicholas could say it the MCU could be bad before programming or not. I told him I would pay for ship to me. He took about days and answered he was traveling and 'had not forgot' about this and would send me when he back. Today I sent he another email and he told he is not responsible for damage in MCU and told I need to buy another MCU!

This is not fair! Not honest! If he is selling LRL he needs to treat customers well. What I will do now? I lost my money and have no MCU!!

NIcholas, what is problem to send another MCU? I pay for shiping costs! Respect my case!

[pablo72]

to prove what he said below is emails he sent me.

I said:
"What I am trying to say is that you or me cannot tell what happened for the chip to be deffective. It is not important. What is important is that I need to have the chip working. So what I wish is to send the chip back to you to prove that I am telling the truth. I need that you reprogram the chip and test to see if it is working. Then I will pay the shipping costs. "

nicholas:

"WORK WITH THESE PROGRAM AND IF I HAVE TIME I SEND YOU OTHER PROGRAMMED IN SHALLAH BUT WHEN I COME IN MY COUNTRY"

my replay:

"OK, thank you for your attention, but the MCU is not working. There is no sound in buzzer or activity in circuit.

So I will have to wait you send me the new MCU.


Please when you send, tell me how much the shipping cost was. I will deposit the amount in your account."

nicholas:

"ok dear"

after many days I ask nicholas when he will send MCU. Then he says he is traveling and would back on sunday and he did not forget me. Several days after passed. I sent email to him and not reply. Then today I sent him another email asking when he would send MCU and this is what he said:


Hi my dear I m not responsqbile for your MCU is not worked because that is your . I hqve send you good programmed MCU . You are the first to say me that.
then need pay for Other new

the cost is 225 Dollars


god bless you

I work i not have times my dear to answer all sorry

now it clair if you want garanty from me you can buy my king LRL not only the MCU.

I am very disapointed to meet persons l can not trust. I spent money in MCU, i built circuit and I can not make work because no MCU. i will never buy anything from nicholas again and I hope forum members know about my case before you think in buy anything from him.

Thanks for all your atention, but I did this to prevent others fall in same problem .

[hung]

C'mon Nicholas, I have always thought you were a nice guy, but this action on your part is not acceptable.
According to the emails you made Pablo believe you would send him another chip to replace the one that is damaged. And in the end you simply turn your back on him?

You and others should know about rule#1 of sales: A happy customer is a returning customer.
If you do not follow this rule your business is likely to implode because when you sell something to someone, it's not simply enough to give the product and receive the money. You start a relationship of trust and fidelity between you and the customer.
According to Pablo, both of you cannot tell if the microcontroller chip was defective or not prior to programming, and since he has already paid for it, what in the hell makes it so hard for you to send him another one? He is even paying for shipping.

I believe you are a nice and educated person, so please don't turn me wrong on this as I know you will reconsider your attitude.

Before months, I decided to buy the king 4.1 MCU program from him.

Pablo, can you point me to what project from Nicholas, this belongs?

[pablo72]

hi mr. hung. thanks very much for your help.
project is this:

http://www.longrangelocators.com/for...ad.php?t=18997

[hung]

Hi. Thanks for the link. Today I had time to read that thread.

No wonder you blame the chip. This project employs a PIC. The old 16F877A MCU from Microchip. This line of PICs are a nightmare to progammers because of known instabilities and fragility due to transients leading to malfunction or loss of data to happen out of the blue.
Why he did not employ an AVR/Atmega a much better choice, is a mistery to me.
So you have all the reasons to complain. And I tell you, I think you will not remain alone too long. If Nicholas sold this PIC to others, sooner or later there will be people facing the same problem and he will need to do something about it. What will he do? Tell these customers that they will need to buy another one just like he did with you? I refuse to believe that he chose to use that PIC on purpose just to earn more money. This would be disgusting. I tend to believe that he did this only because he is familiar with that particular PIC. But anything is possible...

Anyway, it's been more than 2 days now I think, and he did not step forward to comment on this or provide any help to remedy the situation. This means that he apparently does not care about a customer after the sale is done. He is out of my list of decent people now.

Pablo, I checked the project and I can see it's a simple device. In sum, the PIC is sending a PWM signal through the CCP1 pin which is amplified and sent to the antenna. Then the incoming response signal is received by another antenna, amplified and sent to the RC0T1clock pin, captured/compared and it activates RC1/CCP2 pin which happens to be the buzzer. It features 2 amplifiers and filter. It also features a standard 16X2 LCD display with the usual text programming according to what I saw in his videos.
However, I see two issues with this project from the start.
First, even if the output signal sent by PWM to 'energize' the target element is a PCM or CW type and of different frequencies than the ones expected to be 'sent' by the elements and received by the device, the filters are inadequate to support a precise response. Gold for instance is set at 5KHz but the device might detect 10, or 15Khz also. Even if the filters were strictly designed only for this band, the device would detect anything ranging in this frequency, from TV interference to maybe even bats flying.
Also the antennas appear to be telescoping type and there is no mention of how they are built. I see no inductors or apparatus to match the low frequencies intended. So they are completely underutilized in terms of energy sent and received.

Now the good news, Pablo. I was touched by your case and I decided to help you.
This is what I am gonna do. I will redesign this circuit, featuring better filters, integrator and detector stages, and will write a code that will take care of all of this.
If you send me your email by PM if you wish, I will send you the new schematic and also the hex code. You will have in your hands a much better device that will trully detect gold or silver. And I will not charge anything to you . All of this for free.
With one condition tough.
You will not disclose this schematic and code to anyone here in this forum. This will be given only to you and I hope you respect this pact.
Allow me 3 to 4 weeks to send this to you as I am quite busy these last days of the year.

Cheer up. It's Xmas time.

[WM6]

Originally Posted by hung

If you send me your email by PM if you wish, I will send you the new schematic and also the hex code. You will have in your hands a much better device that will trully detect gold or silver. And I will not charge anything to you . All of this for free.

Excellent gesture, hung. Commendable.

Just continue in this style.

I hope that you and Pablo are not the same person?

[pablo72]

Originally Posted by hung

Hi. Thanks for the link. Today I had time to read that thread.

No wonder you blame the chip. This project employs a PIC. The old 16F877A MCU from Microchip. This line of PICs are a nightmare to progammers because of known instabilities and fragility due to transients leading to malfunction or loss of data to happen out of the blue.
Why he did not employ an AVR/Atmega a much better choice, is a mistery to me.
So you have all the reasons to complain. And I tell you, I think you will not remain alone too long. If Nicholas sold this PIC to others, sooner or later there will be people facing the same problem and he will need to do something about it. What will he do? Tell these customers that they will need to buy another one just like he did with you? I refuse to believe that he chose to use that PIC on purpose just to earn more money. This would be disgusting. I tend to believe that he did this only because he is familiar with that particular PIC. But anything is possible...

Anyway, it's been more than 2 days now I think, and he did not step forward to comment on this or provide any help to remedy the situation. This means that he apparently does not care about a customer after the sale is done. He is out of my list of decent people now.

Pablo, I checked the project and I can see it's a simple device. In sum, the PIC is sending a PWM signal through the CCP1 pin which is amplified and sent to the antenna. Then the incoming response signal is received by another antenna, amplified and sent to the RC0T1clock pin, captured/compared and it activates RC1/CCP2 pin which happens to be the buzzer. It features 2 amplifiers and filter. It also features a standard 16X2 LCD display with the usual text programming according to what I saw in his videos.
However, I see two issues with this project from the start.
First, even if the output signal sent by PWM to 'energize' the target element is a PCM or CW type and of different frequencies than the ones expected to be 'sent' by the elements and received by the device, the filters are inadequate to support a precise response. Gold for instance is set at 5KHz but the device might detect 10, or 15Khz also. Even if the filters were strictly designed only for this band, the device would detect anything ranging in this frequency, from TV interference to maybe even bats flying.
Also the antennas appear to be telescoping type and there is no mention of how they are built. I see no inductors or apparatus to match the low frequencies intended. So they are completely underutilized in terms of energy sent and received.

Now the good news, Pablo. I was touched by your case and I decided to help you.
This is what I am gonna do. I will redesign this circuit, featuring better filters, integrator and detector stages, and will write a code that will take care of all of this.
If you send me your email by PM if you wish, I will send you the new schematic and also the hex code. You will have in your hands a much better device that will trully detect gold or silver. And I will not charge anything to you . All of this for free.
With one condition tough.
You will not disclose this schematic and code to anyone here in this forum. This will be given only to you and I hope you respect this pact.
Allow me 3 to 4 weeks to send this to you as I am quite busy these last days of the year.

Cheer up. It's Xmas time.

Mr. hung i can not believe! You are best engineer and have great heart! thank you so much! Not worry i will obbey the pact.

thank you!! God bless you!

[Nicolas]

Originally Posted by hung

Hi. Thanks for the link. Today I had time to read that thread.

No wonder you blame the chip. This project employs a PIC. The old 16F877A MCU from Microchip. This line of PICs are a nightmare to progammers because of known instabilities and fragility due to transients leading to malfunction or loss of data to happen out of the blue.
Why he did not employ an AVR/Atmega a much better choice, is a mistery to me.
So you have all the reasons to complain. And I tell you, I think you will not remain alone too long. If Nicholas sold this PIC to others, sooner or later there will be people facing the same problem and he will n

Anyway, it's been more than 2 days now I think, and he did not step forward to comment on this or provide any help to remedy the situation. This means that he apparently does not care about a customer after the sale is done. He is out of my list of decent people now.

.
If you send me your email by PM if you wish, I will send you the new schematic and also the hex code. You will have in your hands a much better device that will trully detect gold or silver. And I will not charge anything to you . All of this for free.
With one condition tough.
You will not disclose this schematic and code to anyone here in this forum. This will be given only to you and I hope you respect this pact.
Allow me 3 to 4 weeks to send this to you as I am quite busy these last days of the year.

Cheer up. It's Xmas time.

thanks hung