All help is appreciated!    I think the more backers you have, the more you get. It's kind of like a snowball effect. I am all about hand held electronic devices.  $10k seems like it might be a nice sweet spot.  They lay around my office like toys in a kids play room. Let me know if you have any other questions about the process. Ill be going through the wrap up procedure this week. Make sure to keep posted on when you expect to launch.

I think it would be nice if we could have a way to have private threads or something similar to bounce design ideas off each other without fear of them getting stolen. I guess it would be easy enough to send pms but it would be nice to have a section for invite only projects that are confidential but easy to share.

I just want to say that Solidoodle is always willing to post great kick starter projects on its front page to better promote them. We want Solidoodle projects to succeed!

I think it would be nice if we could have a way to have private threads or something similar to bounce design ideas off each other without fear of them getting stolen. I guess it would be easy enough to send pms but it would be nice to have a section for invite only projects that are confidential but easy to share.

I think i will give kickstarter a try later, I have some handheld electronics (my field) that could be sold stand alone, in a printed ABS case or CNC milled out of aluminium, brass, steel or even titanium. I am not sure how much machining titanium costs at this point .. my guess is not cheap. Gives me a few targets for people to buy in though, from $20 or so up to a few hundred.
So I guess I would be looking for 10k+, the great part about the 3d printing field is how easy it is to step up to metal once all the modelling work is done.
I think I will have no problems selling a few hundred anyway. Sold a hundred of my last unit via forums and getting some chinese mass production quotes done currently.

I think the experience is all relative...  I almost gave up on launching because it was a decent bit of work to get this going, but I had so much documentation that it wasn't terrible.  I guess it is all relative on what you think is small.  I am using this mostly to fund my own project and offering rewards that others might be interested in.  Mostly it is a good way to build experience and credibility on kickstarter so when I launch a larger project, hopefully it will look like I know what I am doing. 

In retrospect, I needed to ask for money.  They say that usually it funds or it doesn't and it is based more on interest level rather than amount of money asked.  You don't see very many fail at 85% funded and unless you are selling a great product you don't see a ton funding 800-900%.  If your project is to support something your trying to do, people slow way down on funding once the goal is reached. I guess what I am trying to say is think long and hard about how much you are asking for. 

All that being said, it has been really amazing!  People I know helped get the ball rolling for the first half day, but most of the interest and funding otherwise has been from online searches and the project spreading through communities like this.  As a reference, I didn't do a ton of social networking and my video has almost 5000 views on it.  The coolest part has been the amount of good contacts I have made from private messages on the project.  Lots of great ideas, requests to work on other projects, encouragement, and offers for help in other ways.

I was wondering how you are finding the experience of using kickstarter ?
I considered it a few weeks ago for just a small project and looked into reviews of kickstarter itself, all where a bit vague, seeming to imply a lot of work for smaller projects but possible great rewards for larger ones.
I would guess you are pretty positive about it.
looks like its working for you.

For anybody that is interested, I have now added an entire CAD package for the RObot, plus a complete build manual, and a complete bill of materials to the kickstarter rewards.

Very nice.

http://www.uspto.gov/patents/resources/ … rovapp.jsp

The only concerning part was that it stipulates it can't be used for design inventions, but I was assured this doesn't fall into this category.

@Cmetzel I have a lot more detailed and zoomed video I would love to share, but I think I am going to wait just a little bit longer. Depending on progress, I hope to be able to share more in the near future. As someone completely unfamiliar with how all this works, I am just following the best advice I can get.

Cool can't wait, I understand your hesitation at the moment.

@Cmetzel I have a lot more detailed and zoomed video I would love to share, but I think I am going to wait just a little bit longer. Depending on progress, I hope to be able to share more in the near future. As someone completely unfamiliar with how all this works, I am just following the best advice I can get.