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"Our goal is to post an update of a more detailed print before the end of the campaign"
Still nothing. They made improvements, they showed theses improvements, why not taking a time to make new prints ? Or telling us more about how near or far they are?
It was a goal. Maybe they didnt reach it caused by a bug in the software.
It's not like they are improving something someone have already done. They are creating something from scratch. Kinda hard to know what you'll face.
I'm sure we will see another update next week.
They are also dealing with manufacturing, hiring, managing the kickstarter funds, managing backers, and getting ready to ship beta kits in a month or two. That is a lot to get done in 8 weeks, not to mention inventing systems to make the peachy work properly all at the same time.
I will admit, I am hungry for an update too. I find myself compulsively refreshing all the relevant peachy pages looking for more data. They need time to get things moving, but I am sure we will have an update in good time.
I am sure they have excuses but after many years of working in industry and a backer I find this to be not acceptable that we do not hear it from them proactively. I myself reminded them about the MIA hardware video promised in update 8. To be honest I think overall poor communication has plagued Rinnovated/peachy (James being an exception during the last days of the KS campaign). I sincerely hope it is not something that will continue in the future. I believe it has already cost them enough in terms of distrust and lost backers not allowing them to reach their full potential during the campaigns and I believe if it continues it may result in loss of trust and support from their backers and ultimately their failure to meet their potential.
I know that one can't deliver everything on time but one can always deliver communication. One can always manage expectations; particularly the ones you create yourself. The way forward is simple, I for one would appreciate if Rinnovated could be more proactive on communication and thereby be more respectful of their backers.
In terms of communication, the contrast is massive with e.g. Technical Illusions CastAR kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...-and-vr-system), they're currently 48h live-streaming with Q&A sessions & demos!
I'm more than happy with the current level of communication. If we end up going a month without any word then I'll be a little bit concerned, but we're nowhere near that stage yet. In the mean time, better to let them get on with building the printer than continually ask for more updates. Updates certainly aren't going to make it progress any faster...
The Peachy has had twice as many updates as those AR glasses, and the glasses are further along in development.Quote:
Originally Posted by woale
While I'm glad that the CastAR people are able to do live streaming QA sessions, we don't have the resources for that. We are currently a small group of people working part time to bring this about. As others have mentioned, we're now trying to take what we've collected from the Kickstarter campaign and organize a team, but that takes time. With what time we do have available, we are trying to find a balance between keeping in contact and actually working on the printer. I apologize if we are unable to provide you with enough updates, but we are trying.Quote:
Originally Posted by woale
You know, it's funny how fast time flies. 12 days ago we released the update about the software and 10 days ago came the update of the hardware. Since then, I've spent about 20 hours on hardware and software trying to get things ready for a better print. I wrote a program to listen to the drips and play each layer at the right time. I did extensive testing of the performance of the new hardware prototype. I fought endlessly to get calibration to work well (sometimes you have to fail 10 times to find the right answer). I'm now fighting with segfaults in Python when I use PyAudio and PySide/Qt at the same time. During this time, Rylan has been back home in Yorkton with his family, talking to manufacturers and learning about regulatory issues with the laser. Aside from working my full-time day job and working on the printer, I helped my sister move to a new house, helped a friend install a kitchen, and spent a lovely night with my wife (whom I've seen little of since this campaign started) for our first wedding anniversary. Life moves fast, but it's hard to see that through the keyhole of a forum or a website.Quote:
Originally Posted by NanoH
I'm not trying to make excuses, but I am trying to help you and others understand that development takes time. Project schedules work on weeks and months, not days. Yes, we are making progress. Yes, there have been delays. No, we don't have prints to show you yet. It's not because we aren't "taking time to make new prints", but rather because there is a lot of work to be done before we can make new prints. But that's exactly what we are trying to do. Nathan is on standby with his camera for when the first prints are available. I'm madly trying to get the new hardware and software working well enough to make prints. Rylan is coming back to town tomorrow for another intense week of development. We're working on it.
Our goal was to post more detailed prints before the end of the campaign. We didn't make it, but we fixed a lot and learned a lot along the way. Our immediate goal is still to get more detailed prints and we're actively working on it. As soon as we have prints, we will post them. Until then, we will try to keep you informed of our progress.
James, thanks for the word from behind the scenes. It's great getting more details. I hope your post answers questions about delays.
Thank you James, for the update. I think many people are worried that this will become another "Mu Thermal Camera".
Thank you James for taking the time to answer this thread, it was very informative. I apologize if you felt aggressed by my first post. You and your team are working hard trying to revolutionize the 3d printing world, and I have to admit that I forgot to consider that there are lives behind this amazing project.
Keep it up, I have faith in your work !
While I'm not invested nor interested in the Peachy Printer, my boss [was].
He pulled his backing immediately when the news about 'lacking the ability to show a more detailed print' came out, and I agree.
That's the big problem with Kickstarter things, nothing is set in stone, and things might very well fail horribly before they reach the masses. We saw something like this with the Fill-a-bot, they had an idea for something amazing, but lacked to ability to successfully recreate their idea.
Personally, if I had a good idea that I wanted to kickstart I would make a Kickstarter page and hammer it in that the funding would go into a PROTOTYPE build, that there was the possibility that the idea would NOT work, and that no rewards would be given out for backing (save for recognition in some way). I would make it a set backing amount, so that once I have enough money to make the first prototype the funding period would end.
Then I would actually make the prototype, and even if it was going badly, I would keep in contact with my backers (Because not doing so is a jerk move). I would test my prototype extensively and then eventually, I would look into mass-production.
That's the risk of KS. As it's the risk for business who invest in stuff that dosent show or dosent sell.
The problem with this is that you'd have a lot of trouble actually getting funding. Paying $100 for a good chance (maybe 80% likelihood) of getting a 3D printer is one thing. Paying $100 for an absolute certainty that you won't get anything is not attractive.Quote:
Originally Posted by MysteryAlabaster
You see this with a lot of the Kickstarter campaigns. Campaigns that promise a valuable product for the user are generally pretty successful. Even if they fail, they generate a substantial amount of money (largely depending on how valuable the product appears to be). Campaigns that promise a not-so-valuable product for the user (with most of the money going towards a 'good' cause) are much, much less successful. I can't think of any that promise nothing at all; Kickstarter probably doesn't allow those.
The contact thing is a touchy issue. Consider something like the Makibox (which is finally shipping!) where there are well over a thousand backers, of which a hundred or so are actively communicating (forums, email, etc). The team is only five people or so, and if they handled every customer request (could you make this colour? When are they shipping? Will it print nylon? What's happening for orders that included items that aren't in stock? Why is postage so expensive? Where am I in the order queue?) they'd get no work done on the product. As a result it'd take even longer than it already has done, and the longer it takes the more customer questions they have to answer. If you don't answer them you get a reputation for not caring what your customers say. If you do answer them, you get a reputation for running late on projects.Quote:
Originally Posted by MysteryAlabaster
You can aim for one-way communication (ie where you post updates but don't take questions) and just post updates really frequently. This still occupies a lot of time - I'd imagine that it takes a couple of hours for the Makibox or Peachy teams to prepare a nice professional-looking update. As a result a weekly update is really about as frequent as you can hope for; if it was daily you'd spend half your time doing updates. The other problem with it is that people very quickly become impatient with a perceived lack of progress. For example, if you have four updates in a row saying "worked on the software, still not able to print anything" or "waiting for parts to turn up before building the prototype" then you'll get hundreds of comments along the lines of "this is a scam, they're never going to release anything, I want a refund". Of course, in the real world, spending a month working on software is not at all unreasonable. Waiting a month for parts from China is also very common.
The result is a very fine line between not enough updates (causing people to complain that you don't talk to them) and too many updates (causing people to complain that there's never any progress because all the updates are the same). Regardless of which one you pick, people still expect two-way communication and your undivided attention to their issue. If you do pay attention to them, you never have any time to work on the product. If you don't pay attention to them, they complain.
Slatye: I'd say you hit the nail on the head. It's a delicate balance between promising too much and not being able to deliver vs. not promising anything and not getting any buy-in from potential backers. Likewise, there's a delicate balance between spending time writing updates and spending time developing the printer. We're currently trying to put out updates every time we reach a new milestone. A new piece of software, addressing a known issue, a new hardware rev, and so on. But yes, even just posting on the forums and responding to questions takes time away from development. We're constantly monitoring the time we spend and the reaction from our backers to strive a balance between the two.
Speaking of which, I was silent this weekend because I was working around the clock with Rylan and Nathan to get those prints and we made great progress. We have printed several objects that we will be posting soon. Nathan asked me not to promise any dates (since he's assembling the interviews and video right now), but look forward to something this week.