M3D Printer on Kickstarter

[eflyersteve]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/m3 ... 3d-printer

Tiny printer that was fully funded in under 15 minutes. They look to do a lot with a minimum funding of $50,000 (injection molds cost more than that), but the funding goal was doubled within 30 minutes. I took a risk and got in on the $199.00 early bird special.

Thoughts?

[evanalmighty]

Looks cool. I hope they put the cube out of business.

[JBurd67]

Wish I would have known about this earlier... I would have hopped on that $199 in a heartbeat.

Anyway, it looks pretty nice. Yes, injection molds are expensive, but that $50k may have been the extra they needed to put it over the top. That being said, injection molding produces solid, quality parts, so I'm sure they're on a good path. Give it one or two iterations after their initial production and release, and they'll have a real quality product!

[redwood]

Nov 2014 shipping date for $299 version, yikes!

Why gamble your money and endure endless delays when you can buy a similar priced 3D printer now? I've given up on the kickstarter model for gadgets. I'll wait until they come to market if I really wanted it.

[eflyersteve]

[redwood]

[evanalmighty]

I would have jumped on it too, until I saw the 2015 delivery date

[PxT]

[redwood]

Looks like they want people to fund their company from the ground up.

For $200, one can buy the OneUp printer now.
ttp://store.quintessentialuniversalbuil ... roduct=144

Well, shipping in May that is. I don't envy those guys one bit. Chasing the bottom of the barrel market and providing tech support for all of those units would probably have me walking to the nearest cliff. Fielding tech support tickets for all of the Printrbots must also suck.

h

[DonaldJ]

Is that a rack and pinion setup for the X-axis?

screengrab.jpg

[JBurd67]

Sure looks like it. Looks like the Y is driven by a belt (on either side of the rod) but there's only one of those for the Y. It's gotta be

[DJNOS1978]

My 2 cents:

Kickstarter is a great place to introduce a product. It is not a place to start a business. If you want to realease a product to market you can do that through KS. This little printer seems to be a nice little machine but there are already other $200 printers out there. The price they are selling it for is going to kill them. There is no way they are making much off the machines. They are going to be working 2 years to fill kickstarter rewards. By that time they will be worn out and quit.

And yes the downside to KS is that no one is guaranteed to get a product. It is best to establish credibility first then go to KS.

[DJNOS1978]

@ZZmadzZ Our specific hardware choices are our secret sauce and we have made the decision to keep unnecessary hardware details close to our vest before printers are delivered to deter copycats.

From their page. I thought this was open source?

[redwood]

6,348 Backers
$1,789,737

That's a lot of units that needs to be produced There's going to be a lot of angry people when these things don't ship on time as promised

[DJNOS1978]

Not only that. It's a $200 machine. These folks are going to be working their behinds off to make a little money.

[JBurd67]

It's only $200 for the early people. I can see it going up to 400 once it's in full production. They state that this is a deal for anyone backing even at $300

[DJNOS1978]

There is more to production than just buying parts and assembling. It takes time to assemble, test, correct issues, etc. And if you pay people there goes more profit.

[redwood]

https://www.kickstarter.com/help/fees

Fees

If your project is successfully funded, Kickstarter will apply a 5% fee to the funds raised, and Amazon will apply credit card processing fees (between 3-5%).



That $300 printer is now $270 cash to them. Then there is shipping and packaging, maybe $20? Now its down to $250 they have to work with....

[DJNOS1978]

And you have to pay taxes too right?
Forgot to add that as a manufacturer you have to consider faulty parts. Even if you can repair/recover them it still costs time.

[redwood]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZra5mLnXyA

Looks like their printer makes no noise Is this possible or is it video trickery?

[evanalmighty]

My smartrap makes no noise either, except for the fan.

[redwood]

Whoa, I thought all of these printers were noisy like how inkjet and laser printers are. Any way to mod the Printrbot to silence it?

[redwood]

With 3 more weeks to go, nearly $2.8 million/9,700 units ordered already

Do we need to start hoarding filament? Will there be shortages from time to time as demand is greater than supply? Printrbot is always out of stock with filament as it is now.

[DJNOS1978]

Pxt can take care of that.