Rapide Lite 3D Printer: A good indiegogo campaign

[Sparkey_500]

I wanted to share with the community a crowd funding project for a metal frame 3D printer that I recently funded. It seems like every person has a better, cheaper and revolutionary design for a 3D printer/device. But most of them never deliver on that promise or on time. Well this campaign has just started to deliver on its perks 9 weeks after the campaign started.

Yes there are a lot of less than honest projects on these crowd funding sites, but once every so often we get a good product. I know first hand how bad they can go as I funded the Mu thermal, which I got a full refund back before the money disappeared. Also as a FYI the Rapide 3D company did have patent issue with their first 3D printer campaign. Which I believe was to do with the printer having a enclosed print area.

Anyway check it out and make up your own damn mind.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/rapide-lite-affordable-high-resolution-3d-printer/x/307336

[Dongulus]

I backed this one as well. I was unsure at first, particularly because of what happened with their Rapide One campaign, but the overwhelming number of photos and updates curbed my doubt fairly quickly. I still went with the "commit now pay later" option as a further measure to protect my money, so I'll have to wait a while longer for mine.

Rapide-3D is a company that already had some start-up capital, so the Rapide-Lite was way beyond the rendering and prototype stage when the campaign started. They were ready for a small production run from the beginning and set up the campaign as a way to test their manufacturing process (which is almost entirely internal), square up their shipping methods, and generate good-faith with a base of users by delivering their product at cost.

I'm happy to see the reports of people receiving their printers. This has been an example of an IGG campaign done superbly. It's quite uncommon to see a campaign deliver exactly what it promises so near to the timeline expected (they're just a couple of weeks behind for the early bird adopters). Also unusual is the frequency of their updates; their updates have occurred so regularly that some backers have complained that their email is being spammed (updates occur almost daily!). I don't think I have ever heard of anyone complain about too much information on any other crowd-funded campaign. For this, they really deserve credit where it's due. 

[Dago]

These printers actually look fairly decent mechanically and not like total jokes like most other 3D-printers. I'm kinda thinking if I should buy one for a toy...

I'm just wary because I'm not familiar with the software side of 3D printers. What if I buy one of these printers and the company goes tits up the next day and the control software becomes unavailable? Or do I even need a control software or how do these things work?

Edit: whoops, nothing.

[Sparkey_500]

The CEO did a 100kg stress test on two of the printers while printing in one of the updates.
I don't think many 3D printers could take that kind of force and still print.

From what I can recall they are using an atmel mega (arduino) as the controller like many other 3D printers. So if indeed the company does go tits up, software wouldn't be an issue.