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3D Printer Fund – Sponsume

This morning, we’re launching our first crowd-funding drive to raise £2000 for 3D printing facilities in the space.

Since before day one, a 3D printer has been on the minds of the community (and plenty of people who have said that they would join the community if those facilities were available), and now, we’re ready to rock!

“Hold on, what are you getting?”

What we’re asking for is £2,000 for an Ultimaker 3D Printer, an UltiController (allowing members to print their plans directly from SD card), and several kilos of ABS and PLA Plastic to actually print, along with a rolling tool-table to keep all of the relevant parts in one ‘package’ for easy use.

These Dutch designed and manufactured kits can deposit 3mm diameter ABS or PLA plastic to an accuracy of 12.5 micrometres, in a potential build volume of over 2.5 gallons, at a rate of a cubic centimetre every 7 seconds, at a rough cost of 4p/cm$^3$.

“Why can’t it just be bought outright?”

Farset Labs serves a wide community with very disparate interests, from PS2 Clustering to Pinball repair. As such, it isn’t fair for the collective community to pay so much for one sector, especially if the interest in that sector is speculative. Beyond that argument, Farset Labs operates on a break-even basis at the minute and as such, simply can’t afford such a large investment at this time.

“So what do I get for my hard earned donation?”

There are nine donation reward levels, ranging from ‘Just feeling good about yourself’ to a years Freelancer membership plus a choice between the intermediate reward levels. In between, the individual ‘swag’ items on offer are:

  • Your name on a Laser Etched Plaque on the machine
  • A 3D printed of the brand new Farset Labs logo
  • A 3D printed model of your choice, along with a timelapse video of your model being printed
  • Customised Farset Labs tee-shirt
  • Raspberry Pi Kit and Personalised 3D printed Case
  • and Email and Video “Thank you” messages from the Directors

“But… But… But… I wanted 3D printing time?!”

Ahh, but that’s the big story; 3D printing will be free for all membership levels and the consumable supplies will be taken out of the global community budget (once we run out of the specific 3D printer funds).

This freedom will be on a ‘fair use’ basis; if you wish to do any larger scale manufacture, please order your own materials and feel free to use the printer here!

“Ok, I’m sold, I’ll chuck a few quid in”

Thank you!

We’re running the Sponsume until Sunday the 18th of November, and hope to get your tasty tasty rewards out to you before Christmas, so please share this blog post to anyone who you think would be interested in getting involved.

If you have any other questions, please let us know below or on the campaign.

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