I’ve backed the Polysher (pending), the FR4 CNC (shipped this week), Slash SLA printer (supposedly next few weeks), CowTech Ciclops 3D scanner (shipped), Modifi3D (shipped) and the E3D BigBox 3D printer (chipped), and a couple of small things (like a solar tracking chip). The only one I got screwed on was the Controllino PLC (which never shipped to me, it did deliver to some folks, but not everyone got, and the guy sort of went onto his real business and despite repeated calls, never got)
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I forgot about the FR4 machine shield. I preordered mine in a moment of weakness. Especially since I have the PocketNC already and haven’t taken it out of the box yet. 
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You have the 5-axis one? Damn, I totally want one… But on a more practical (cough - don’t ask my wife) I’d get the smaller Tormach, since it can eat much larger stuff and can really cut steel, etc.
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Yeah, I would love a Tormach or one of the other larger machines, but the PocketNC fits my current space and does most of what I need. Though if things keep headed the way they seem to be, I might be getting something larger sooner rather than later.
The PocketNC looks like a sweet machine. I just need to finish the dust enclosure and get it running.
Ordered a Grove on Kickstarter about a year ago. It’s quite late, and after hounding them they told me they were ready to ship. But I’m redoing my floors and so I couldn’t install it yet. Then it’s heavy to move once it’s in place. So I gave up my place in line and now I have to pray they survive and eventually deliver to me. Bought it for my wife her 40th. Next week is her 41st.
I actually think just about every Kickstarter I’ve backed has been late, often very late. So far none have failed outright. Really nervous about my Grove. Hope I didn’t make a mistake.
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Ken Whitman got a deal to make live action KODT movies. Got his kickstarter money and instead of renting equipment, bought it. That was 5? Years ago and we’ve gotten the three episodes. 1st one is decent. 2nd one needs a final edit. 3rd one is basically a rough cut with no color correction, bad audio, and that’s the best of it.
The actors are good. The story is a fan favorite from the comics. Many people didn’t get paid. Maybe half the backers got the hardcover books they were supposed to.
Then to help ends meet, he launched a Traveller TV pilot kickstarter, a pencil dice kickstarter, a dice card deck kickstarter,…/
And was trying to launch one more before all the complaints and reports to kickstarter got the last three shut down.
He’s since moved from Kentucky(where he’d never registered his business- couldn’t have as someone in the comics forums lived in Ky and had the name registered) to Georgia(has gotten work as an actor-apparently was a zombie in last year’s WD finale) where he still posts about feeling bad and promises to eventually deliver. Many have filed with various AGs(well, I did). His now ex-wife wondered where cruise money came from and other things.
He’s also still open to taking money on his own website to support the KODT and Traveller rewards(a bunch of the spaceships from that one wound up for sale in a fairly reputable game shop-they were all supposed to be backer only rewards-the shop made good and figured out who was owed them and ate the cost of buying them and ate the cost of shipping to their deserved owners).
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Movies seem to have the hardest time on Kickstarter, though I’ve been pretty lucky. One, a documentary about Calvin and Hobbes was on schedule and very good. The other, a documentary about Podcasts was finally delivered two years later than the estimated date… but is also very good.
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I’ve been waiting for one documentary that had an estimated delivery date of december 2012… (Of course part of it wasn’t the documentarian’s fault; the story unfolded just a touch slower than expected.)
I have backed a number of Kickstarters and only 1 of them has failed to deliver.
My POV on it is the same as my Share Portfolio… I do my research 95% of the time and back what i think is going to pay off. 5% of the time i back a stock (or Project) for fun and take what happens as part of the ride; sometimes i win big (but not always or even often)
[quote=“chadmart1076, post:699, topic:3657”]
I have backed quite a few Kickstarter projects, and I have been lucky enough for all of them to be delivered. Some were as much as 2 years late from their initial expected delivery date.[/quote]
Yup, this is my experience, and it appears consistent with other backers i know.
As i have mentioned elsewhere: The projects that have pushed to make their delivery deadline mostly under-performed in Quality. Those projects that aimed for Quality were almost always late but worth the wait.
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I liked their backer rewards, but ultimately didn’t back it. I need to check in on it and see the latest though!
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Where do you find the time to work with all of those and do your day job too? You must get 2 hours sleep a day at most.
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haha. First I drink a ton of caffeine! Second I’ve managed to combine a lot of my making with my work, so that helps…
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Ive backed about 65 kickstarters and some indiegogos. I have only had a couple not ship after funds were paid. The ones that didnt ship I never saw a dime from, as they were no-refund projects (mostly from indie gogo. I refuse to touch that site anymore). The biggest issue Ive had is things that shipped, but were nowhere close to near what was promised, and generally incredibly late.
Things ranging from 5 nozzle 3d printers, to pugz bluetooth headphones, all the way down to earplugs that had a listening switch on them. All looked and sounded great on paper, and were pretty terrible products when delivered. Pugz were incredibly late because they were behind in production, and even then they shipped me headphones that die really quickly, DONT have the iphone connection originally promised, and have a very audible hiss while listening. I was excited for quite a while to get those. Not worth it.
Then theres the peachy printer. I went into that project with the notion I was throwing $100 away. I loved getting their updates with all the cool discoveries they had made along the way. I wish glowforge was able to do something along these lines. All the little insights made the wait so much more including, and bearable. It made me enjoy that campaign so much more. It was really sad to see the scandal at the end, because they had made a lot of great progress.
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I did get one KS refunded when they figured out they’d never be able to make it at near the price point I backed at.
Ditto on Indiegogo - you don’t need anything but an idea & some slick marketing materials to start something there so I’ve had a high failure rate there. Although I did score the Opal ice maker on there. 
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I’ve noticed that Indiegogo is tagging things as “concept” or “prototype” or maybe even production – “concept” seems to be an invitation to toss money at people who have no idea what they’re doing, especially if it’s “flexible funding”.
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Yup, i am much more wary with Indiegogo as well
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It’s interesting to hear all of your comments re: the higher failure rate with Indigogo. Everything that I’ve funded there has been successful, but again - all of my prior crowdfunding experience has been with creative arts or charity endeavors. I contributed to those because I wanted to support the idea, not because I wanted something in return. Glowforge was the first tech crowdfunding project that I’ve participated in, and the first one that I supported because I wanted an end product - as opposed to supporting a project.
With that said, I wonder if the different crowdfunding platforms might be better suited to different types of projects? IE - Kickstarter for tech/Indigogo for creative efforts?
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I did not receive this email update- should I be concerned that I didn’t get it? I got the email for the previous update
Just wanted to make sure I get the latest updates
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Curious as to why you (everyone here) feel that way. History of project types, general marketing, a story in particular, a gut feeling? I never differentiated the two.
It’d be interesting if different market places diverged more by focus. One leaned more consumer product (KS) and another leaning more experimental (IGoGo).