Peachy Printer: Backer Update #66

[Eddie]

Here is the latest update from the KS campaign.

Dear Backers,
We’ve taken note of your desire for us to drop the fancy videos and take a raw, off-the-cuff approach, so that’s exactly what we did. Many of you have asked for a full, start to finish, uncut print demonstration, nothing fancy… Here it is:
https://youtu.be/llIc79P3YIEWe’ve never done a video like that before simply because we didn’t think anyone would be interested in watching long, rather uneventful videos. In this case, we completely understand it’s value. I appreciate that it’s important to think critically. If you have doubts about the printer being real, then it’s our job to prove the work we’ve done. I hope that this along with our recent move to publish our work helps remove some of the skepticism around the project. Also not that using pop bottles is simply the cheapest way to make a peachy printer, you can certainly make yours look much nicer.
In our next update I will do a video of me going through our inventory of parts.
In other news, today I was pleased to learn that the Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority will be conducting an investigation! I spoke with Eric Greene, Director - Consumer Protection Division, and we are arranging for an investigator to come and meet with us. This is extremely good news.
Now let’s talk about some of your other questions and concerns...
What about all the other money you raised?
Peachy Printer continued to raise funds at various times after the original KS & IGG campaigns. To date the total amount of received funds - less the various fees and the stolen funds - are just shy of $1,150,000.00
So, where did all of that money go? Largely to the development of the various rewards offered during our campaign. As we mentioned before, getting the Peachy Printer to work as well as it does now took a long time - a lot of man hours.
We also spent a portion of those funds on ordering components for printer delivery, setting up our manufacturing & packaging facilities, actually manufacturing printers, and finally, certification. As mentioned in the Report of Received Funds section in the Executive Summary, we have yet to finish our books for the 2014/2015 Fiscal Year. An expense chart for that period is not available yet, but we will certainly provide that when we can.
Many of you may think that it’s absurd or unnecessary to have spent so much on developing this product. I once had that same naivety, which is part of why we consistently missed our delivery estimates. The fact is that hardware development is a long, hard road with many unexpected twists and turns - especially when dealing with difficult design constraints - we had to get this thing working while maintaining our $100 price point. The goal of creating a $100 3D printer, not only for our backers, but for the world was central to the campaign. We’ve done that work. I think any veteran of hardware R&D would look at our spending and development time and say this is normal.
I did not intend to shy away from the fact that we’ve raised a lot more money. Rather, I felt that it would simplify an already complex story if I just focused on the Kickstarter funds. That is the pool of money that the theft occurred within, so I focused on that while telling the story.
I apologize if that has caused additional confusion concern.
Based on the files you released, it looks like there was a fair bit of feature creep and dead ends.
Dead ends? Certainly. Most notably, we spent a lot of resources pursuing the audio approach. In the end, digital turned out to be the right choice. While it’s unfortunate that we didn’t realize that sooner, that is the natural course of hardware R&D. You put resources into design directions and some of them turn out to be dead ends. Although, that doesn’t mean that no value was gained from those efforts. We’ve learned valuable lessons from our failures.
Feature creep? Not really. The amount of time and effort that was put into additional features or products is very minimal in comparison to the Peachy Kit. It was by far our main focus. Things like the z-axis print base system may seem like feature creep on the surface, however it proved to be a valuable tool in troubleshooting. By eliminating the drip system from the equation, we were able to determine that it was the true source of many issues.
What’s with the video?
It’s become staggeringly clear that we took the wrong approach with the main video that introduced this problem. Unfortunately, many people found it to be unbelievable, disingenuous, and downright cheesy. There have also been concerns about the high quality of production. I can assure you that just like all of our update videos in the past, this was a very low budget, in house production. We have never outsourced that work to a production company.
Lastly I would like to apologize for something...
I am extremely sorry that I ever let my Kickstarter campaign be set up in such a way that this problem could occur. Although I didn’t steal the money, I’m still accountable for this project. I don't expect anyone to let me off the hook. I still think it is my responsibility to do everything I can to deliver printers and bring this project to the best possible outcome. I’m not sure how this will turn out but I will be here to play my part.
Rylan Grayston.

[oninoshiko]

@rylangrayston Thank you for posting that raw video. I doubt it will really appease many of the doubters, but but at least it answers that one question.

[Alchemy]

I really hope the technology is used and some good comes out of developing it. Good to see a nice clear video of what it does.

[ServiceXp]

LOL, you have got to be kidding me. After all this time and money (the part that didn't get stolen/wasted) this is the result? I could be all wrong but my knee jerk gut reaction is: this was never going to or intended to come to market, and all parties involved are responsible.

[oninoshiko]

LOL, you have got to be kidding me. After all this time and money (the part that didn't get stolen/wasted) this is the result? I could be all wrong but my knee jerk gut reaction is: this was never going to or intended to come to market, and all parties involved are responsible.

Yes, the end result of a project to make a stereolithographic 3d printer kit, is a device which functions as a stereolithographic 3d printer. I'm not really sure what you expected.

At this point it appears the only thing holding this back is the certifications required for shipping internationally (outside of canada). That comes down to money, somewhere around 20k.

[steadcraft]

Yes, the end result of a project to make a stereolithographic 3d printer kit, is a device which functions as a stereolithographic 3d printer. I'm not really sure what you expected.

At this point it appears the only thing holding this back is the certifications required for shipping internationally (outside of canada). That comes down to money, somewhere around 20k.

Um, actually, they only have a portion of the parts to build the first 600 of several thousand.

[oninoshiko]

Um, actually, they only have a portion of the parts to build the first 600 of several thousand.

Yes, but they can't ship ANY (well outside of canada anyway) without that certification. If the missing money magically appeared tomorrow, once the certification was done they could start shipping. The 50/50 plan could work.

[ServiceXp]

Yes, the end result of a project to make a stereolithographic 3d printer kit, is a device which functions as a stereolithographic 3d printer. I'm not really sure what you expected.

At this point it appears the only thing holding this back is the certifications required for shipping internationally (outside of canada). That comes down to money, somewhere around 20k.

I don't have a dog in this race (thankfully), but If I were an investor, I would have expected at the very least a polished, market ready solution after this much time. From what I saw in this video, that is simply not the case, and even though I understand the technology behind the project, IMO its not a very practical process and is the reason I didn't choose the back the project.

I feel bad for the investors, but I don't in anyway feel bad for the principle parties in the company.

[oninoshiko]

I don't have a dog in this race (thankfully), but If I were an investor, I would have expected at the very least a polished, market ready solution after this much time. From what I saw in this video, that is simply not the case, and even though I understand the technology behind the project, IMO its not a very practical process and is the reason I didn't choose the back the project.

I feel bad for the investors, but I don't in anyway feel bad for the principle parties in the company.

It was always a kit. Some assembly required. They have always made that clear.

As to practicality: you put resin in, you get a print out. What exactly to do find not being practical about it? I mean, my local makerspace has a 1500 USD lolzbot that's completely unusable until someone takes apart the print-head to sort out the jam in it (which will be me, if noone else gets to it before wednesday). Is that more practical? (not to rip on the lolzbot, it's actually a pretty decent extrusion printer.) Anything non-trivial in 3D printing requires some technical expertise, that's just the nature of it.

[CescoAiel]

It was always a kit. Some assembly required. They have always made that clear.

As to practicality: you put resin in, you get a print out. What exactly to do find not being practical about it? I mean, my local makerspace has a 1500 USD lolzbot that's completely unusable until someone takes apart the print-head to sort out the jam in it (which will be me, if noone else gets to it before wednesday). Is that more practical? (not to rip on the lolzbot, it's actually a pretty decent extrusion printer.) Anything non-trivial in 3D printing requires some technical expertise, that's just the nature of it.

It's the nature of this kind of tech... The Fablab here has 3 filament extrusion 3D printers, and only 1 is usable atm. One had to have the dual extruder head replaced and still needs calibrating, the other has a heatbed which is out of alignment, because people can't keep their hands off of the machines while they're printing... So yeah, tinkering is inevitable...

I was too late to get in on the kickstarter, and after I found it, decided to take my time, reading up and following the progress, and wanted to wait until end of this month, when I got extra money, to order it... Not happening at this time...

However if they make them available for purchase, and purchasing one means a backer will get to get one too, then I'm all for it!

I *am* in on a few other kickstarters, and at least one has still not delivered due to scope creep, and by now the tech has been equaled or overtaken by others, and they announced they're trying to find investors because they ran out of money! Stupid and something they were warned about as they kept 'improving' and time went on... It sucks, but I can't let it control my life! I just hope they'll deliver eventually!