Kickstarter Concluded, Production Update, and Several Neat Projects

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Close of the Kickstarter Pledge Phase

The Kickstarter has concluded! It doesn’t feel like too much of a celebration moment for us because we’re focused on working to deliver the kits. We’ll save our celebration for when everyone’s kit arrives, but we do want to give our heartfelt thanks to everyone that backed us or shared the project with friends. This project is only possible with your support! We can’t wait to make it happen.

Update on Production

On that note, we’ve been hard at work getting the manufacturing process moving. We were able to negotiate with several of the longest lead-time suppliers to put down relatively small deposits ($2,000 or $5,000 etc) on our large orders in order to begin production immediately. This makes a big difference in our timeline because it can take up to 14 calendar days for Kickstarter to process everyone’s payments and get the money to us. Some of our parts take 35 days to produce, while others only take a day or two. Waiting the full 2 weeks to begin production would have had a large impact on the ETA of our kits. 

We really appreciate our manufacturing partners willingness to take on the risk of starting production before we can pay them in full. Most of our suppliers worked with us on the last Kickstarter and we put a lot of effort into building good relationships with them. It's good to see that they feel they can rely on us, because we certainly rely on them too!

Molded Part Samples are Here!

The first samples of our new injection molded parts are here and they look gorgeous! We’re very pleased with how they came out. 

These molded parts incorporate all of the changes and improvements that we’ve made to the design. We’ve only had a few hours to start testing them, but our first impressions are that things look good.

One issue in our old design was that the nuts which hold the two halves of the arm together protrudes ever so slightly from the arm where it can rub on the inner edge of the spool.

We’ve eliminated that rubbing by relocating the nuts slightly inwards. To fit them into the same space we’ve reduced the size of the hole slightly. We’re pleased with how that worked out and the overall improvement, but it does make the nuts harder to place. In the past they were free to fall into or out of their pocket, but now they need to be pressed into place.

Maslow 4.1 uses Torx T8 hardware instead of allen wrench hardware and to make this step of the assembly easier we are going to look into including a T8 Torx screwdriver in each kit in addition to the L wrench type wrench that we were planning to include. Having the right tool in the box makes assembly easier.

Neat Projects this Week

Forums user @Paul_Smyk posted this absolutely phenomenal laptop stand on an articulating arm. He made two! Complex and replicable projects like this are one of the biggest draws of CNC technology and it’s cool to see out in the wild.

Forums user @Caleb_Yager is the first to begin testing the Maslow 4 on aluminum! He has been experimenting with different bit RPMs and feed rates and reporting his findings.Thanks Caleb!

Anna has been delving into furniture design this week and completed a chair made with retired climbing ropes. She is working on a video summary of the project, but in the meantime, here is a look. It's actually quite comfortable!

ALTSpace Workshop

Tonight we are hosting an informal workshop at ALTSpace, the makerspace where we have been running much of our testing. If you recall from the spring, we were having trouble replicating some of the bugs that were reported in the forum in our own shop, because it was too static-free and dust-free. ALTSpace let us set up a little testing spot which allowed us to hunt down those bugs. And if you’ve watched some of our youtube videos, you have probably seen Maslow in action at ALTSpace. 

We are very grateful to the folks there and we want to make sure their community of makers feels empowered to set up and use the Maslow on their own. If you are in Seattle and want to stop by, It’s tonight at 5:30 at the ALTSpace located in Georgetown. Send Anna an email at anna@maslowcnc.com so she can unlock the door for you.

We know this is probably too short of notice for most folks to make it, but fear not, we’re planning to organize more in person events for those of you who are local in the not too distant future.

Thanks for reading!

-Anna and Bar