Author Topic: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon  (Read 13636 times)

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Offline sacherjj

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Re: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon
« Reply #25 on: August 06, 2014, 01:38:52 pm »
I'm not sure what the best low power MCU would be (MSP430?) but that with this might be something workable:

https://www.adafruit.com/products/1393?gclid=CjwKEAjwpIefBRCuir7wy-f1kCwSJADXBi2a9FdADQHDDWuB9THiI1Wd9JTalB2yNwEjkWX0_jbC2RoCDHjw_wcB

I would use USB to set time, charge, etc.  Still hard to get a nice enclosure design, as a watch is a fairly tough product.  Small, durable, reasonably water resistant, etc.  One thing that you could do at home is low pressure injection molding.  Work up the electronics and gasket off the screen.  Then make mold blocks out of plastic.  Then low pressure inject a silicon or epoxy.  I've had to do that for a prototype and the time wasn't bad. 
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon
« Reply #26 on: August 06, 2014, 01:51:05 pm »
Because of the negativity I've been getting here I am going to can the project...
It seems kickstarter is no place for my project
It can be, provided you would at least show a working prototype IN A WATCH ENCLOSURE. Having a massive box full of wires and a 3d rendered drawing of a tiny little case is not a good idea for kickstarting.

Make a nice pcb  layout , build one, make little video , add sexy case around it, have that 3d printed , then we will talk. All i see on kickstarter is a sketchup drawing of an (ugly) case
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Offline DJohn

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Re: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon
« Reply #27 on: August 06, 2014, 02:43:30 pm »
Because of the negativity I've been getting here I am going to can the project...
It seems kickstarter is no place for my project

Don't can it.  Kickstarter might be the place for it, just not yet.

Continue developing.  Start a thread in the Projects forum to talk about it.  Listen to the advice people give you.  Ask for help with the things you can't do yourself.  When you've got something that looks like a watch, and just needs a bit of polish and larger-scale manfacture, then you're ready for Kickstarter.

If you genuinely can't afford to continue with it, you can still turn to Kickstarter.  If you offer a finished product as a reward, people will want some assurance that you'll be able to deliver, and what you have so far doesn't offer that.  But if you say "please give me money to develop this" and offer nothing but the warm fuzzy feeling of having helped someone, then you might find a few generous people.


Or you can forget about the watch and just say "My amazing new device will produce infinite free energy, cure cancer, and win 13 gold medals at the 2015 Olympics".  Make a flashy video and a few photoshop mock-ups, and watch the money pour in.  That seems to be a popular option.
 

Offline williefleeteTopic starter

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Re: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon
« Reply #28 on: August 06, 2014, 03:24:09 pm »
Because of the negativity I've been getting here I am going to can the project...
It seems kickstarter is no place for my project

Don't can it.  Kickstarter might be the place for it, just not yet.

Continue developing.  Start a thread in the Projects forum to talk about it.  Listen to the advice people give you.  Ask for help with the things you can't do yourself.  When you've got something that looks like a watch, and just needs a bit of polish and larger-scale manfacture, then you're ready for Kickstarter.

If you genuinely can't afford to continue with it, you can still turn to Kickstarter.  If you offer a finished product as a reward, people will want some assurance that you'll be able to deliver, and what you have so far doesn't offer that.  But if you say "please give me money to develop this" and offer nothing but the warm fuzzy feeling of having helped someone, then you might find a few generous people.


Or you can forget about the watch and just say "My amazing new device will produce infinite free energy, cure cancer, and win 13 gold medals at the 2015 Olympics".  Make a flashy video and a few photoshop mock-ups, and watch the money pour in.  That seems to be a popular option.

Meditate on this I will.
You're a bit late on the canning, I've removed the project off the site. When I have a chance and a working design, (that appeases free_electron's tastes ;D ) I will probably start it up again
As the chunky prototype uses the PICAXE, and hence BASIC maybe getting a dev kit for a low power MCU and learning to program the thing might be in order, it will have to be reasonably sized for code and input outputs, support a RTC, finding a low power display eg a low res small size dot matrix backlit LCD (8x8?) might be a tall order, although mikes electric stuff mentions these little displays http://youtu.be/eAoC818Mxy4 super low power and would act like a bit like the shift registers used in my chunky watch (don't need refreshing to hold an image)
 

Offline tjb1

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Re: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon
« Reply #29 on: August 06, 2014, 03:52:50 pm »
As the chunky prototype uses the PICAXE, and hence BASIC maybe getting a dev kit for a low power MCU and learning to program the thing might be in order

 :palm:

Kickstarter needs to update its prototype requirement to forbid anything build with an Arduino, PICAXE or other beginner's learning kit.

Probably the dumbest thing you have said yet.
 

Offline williefleeteTopic starter

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Re: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon
« Reply #30 on: August 07, 2014, 09:54:06 am »
Probably the dumbest thing you have said yet.

Think of it like a test - if you can't take your prototype beyond being written in BASIC or relying on an Arduino you probably can't turn it into a real product. Look at the SOAP guys - started with an Ardunino, all they needed to do was add an ethernet shield and job done, right?

But hay, feel free to throw money at these idiots. You know what they say, a fool and his money...
wow.
what a troll, arduino uses a variant of C, and you can program a blank chip with the bootloader unlike picaxe, i believe.

 

Offline bwat

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Re: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon
« Reply #31 on: August 07, 2014, 10:43:15 am »
Think of it like a test - if you can't take your prototype beyond being written in BASIC or relying on an Arduino you probably can't turn it into a real product.
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Offline Ribster

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Re: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon
« Reply #32 on: August 07, 2014, 11:22:32 am »
Probably the dumbest thing you have said yet.

Think of it like a test - if you can't take your prototype beyond being written in BASIC or relying on an Arduino you probably can't turn it into a real product. Look at the SOAP guys - started with an Ardunino, all they needed to do was add an ethernet shield and job done, right?

But hay, feel free to throw money at these idiots. You know what they say, a fool and his money...
wow.
what a troll, arduino uses a variant of C, and you can program a blank chip with the bootloader unlike picaxe, i believe.

I agree on the portion that what you show off, can't be based on a devkit concerning the hardware part.
Software part, i don't give a rats ass.
If you can't do the effort of designing, ordering and soldering up a couple of pcbs so you have a semi production version, well then don't bother.
If the project is hardware based, imo a working prototype includes a self designed and fabbed board/hardware.
Even if it is 3d printed, even if it is self-etched (that includes self-cnc'd etc..). You show that you understand the hardware process and can bring the project to a good end.
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Offline tjb1

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Re: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon
« Reply #33 on: August 07, 2014, 11:30:27 am »
Probably the dumbest thing you have said yet.

Think of it like a test - if you can't take your prototype beyond being written in BASIC or relying on an Arduino you probably can't turn it into a real product. Look at the SOAP guys - started with an Ardunino, all they needed to do was add an ethernet shield and job done, right?

But hay, feel free to throw money at these idiots. You know what they say, a fool and his money...

I don't throw my money at anything.  I refuse to support anything on Kickstarter or Indiegogo anymore because they are now host to people who just grab and run.

You talk about Arduino because it is a beginner tool in your electronic world but I would guess you are the same person that uses Sketchup or TinkerCAD without second thought.  In my world, these are the beginner tools.  I use Inventor Professional everyday for about 6 hours.  I do not go looking at projects and sticking my nose in the air because others are using Sketchup, TinkerCAD or something similar.

The only thing I care about is the end product and if it works how I would like, I could care less if they drew things on a piece of toilet paper or stuffed an entire Arduino UNO board inside their project.

The problem with the Kickstarter the OP made is the prototype was not nearly far enough along, the project would not be well received and would likely not be funded at all.  With all the projects on Kickstarter running off with the money, you need to present a more finished project and a project enclosure from radioshack is not anywhere near finished for a watch.  Seeing as how big 3D printing is now, you could likely find someone in your area with their own printer to help you and print your first couple prototypes then use those for the Kickstarter.  Places like Protolabs do cheap small run injection molding which would be useful for finished cases.  Once you have a real prototype, stick that on Kickstarter and you'll likely be funded.
 

Offline williefleeteTopic starter

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Re: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon
« Reply #34 on: August 07, 2014, 04:07:23 pm »
Yea I underestimated some stuff thanks for pointing that out a million times  ::)

I'm not trying to be nasty,

Well you are kinda coming across as nasty to me
« Last Edit: August 07, 2014, 04:09:19 pm by williefleete »
 

Offline tom66

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Re: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon
« Reply #35 on: August 08, 2014, 10:01:14 am »
If you want to take other people's money, you open yourself up to public criticism. Don't want it? Don't use kickstarter...
 

Offline emusan

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Re: Binary watch, I decided to jump on the kickstarter bandwagon
« Reply #36 on: August 08, 2014, 10:01:24 pm »
If you want to take other people's money, you open yourself up to public criticism. Don't want it? Don't use kickstarter...

This ^

And sort of along those lines, I really have to question the reason for putting this on kickstarter in the first place. In my mind you shouldn't really be creating a project on kickstarter just to "jump on the kickstarter bandwagon."

If you have a neat product and you really think people will enjoy it then by all means go ahead and make one, but I think you should wait until your prototypes are a bit closer to final, or request a lot more money in order to invest in the R&D if necessary (if you can't afford it now, and you end up spending all the kickstarter money on building up the final version, there will be nothing left to build all of the backer watches, etc.)
« Last Edit: August 08, 2014, 10:08:14 pm by emusan »
 


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