Worth reading and discussing IMHO
“I am writing this article recently as I have been following the development of many Kickstarter 3D printers for over a year and the market has reached a point this month where I feel like legitimate companies are being damaged by cash-grab start-ups.”
Pinned for a while because it’s a really good article.
I’d even like to see it sidebar’d. Maybe take http://3dhacker.com off there if we’re still at the cap.
Also, update http://3dhacker.com to its new home if it’s staying.
I wonder if the m3d kickstarter was an inspiration for this article.
I don’t think the bulk of people that start KS printer projects that fail have bad intentions, they just don’t know what they are up against or have any experience. They fail for the reasons mentioned in the piece. The issue is as much with the projects as what appears to be a plentiful stream of those willing to fund them. They are using KS as a preorder instead of an investment so when the project tanks they’re angry and disappointed they didn’t get anything. Sharing the article not just here but at your hackerspace, school, robotics club, etc will go a long way to educating people about what is realistic in a low cost printer.
Page not found… 
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://3dprototypesandmodels.com.au/blog-2/ (but the original link is back up as well)
thanks, that helped.
And now I’m confident, that M3D made everything right with the Micro. Even without additional funds (wich I know they got) the equation gives out a rough 250K of dollars overplus.
This is sound reasoning, and plays out in the real life scenario I know about: RigidBot Kickstarter project raised just over $1M, at a price point slightly lower than suggested by the formula presented. The result? They are losing money (slightly) on every printer they ship to their backers. Luckily, the RigidBot is a new venture for an existing company; the company’s other products will keep them afloat, allowing for a v2 at a more realistic price point.
@Reinhard_Barmonster I think only time will tell with M3D but I’m still deeply skeptical about their claims.
LOL - I’m biased, as I have one sitting on my desk. THe founder of the project has really put a lot of time and thought into how to actually deliver his printer, and I think has a couple of good contingency plans. Time will tell - obviously I’m in.
One other critical distinction is that he has limited all of his rewards based on his ability to deliver - so an “over success” explosion is impossible in the context of the article.
That’s a great article, and puts some real numbers into it. I am reminded of “The Producers” - more sales lead to bigger losses. You really can’t make it up on the volume.
I think that Makibox fell firmly in to the “Kickstarter” trap - I can’t imagine how they can stay afloat much longer. I thought at the time their price was too low and sales too high.
Time will tell but I made sure that a single unit was profitable and that I understood the amount of taxes and fees (hint: a lot). Also not having unknowns such as injection molding will help much. I realize at a point printing parts will become unrealistic and have folded metal parts already drawn up and quoted.
@Brad_Hill did you make sure that you’re also paying yourself decently - that is, actually making money from each sale/preorder?
It seems LittleRP is realistically priced. It has fewer motors and easy to mass produce side panels. The source designs are available now too, so people gave been proving the design.
The race to the bottom has been happening after the Printrbot, most of the KS projects seem to be earnest in wanting to offer an inexpensive product, but most of them are hobbyists that don’t have a track record or visible experience mass producing anything, or in running a business, among numerous other problems. A lot of them don’t even show their prototype machine building anything, so why does anyone think they can even get ONE machine to work? It took the cobblebot guy two weeks to post a test cube build video, raising the question of how he built the Dalek or the Yoda he showed off in the first picture. Probably not on the machine he’s trying to sell.