I don’t think that being a business man after a profit is a bad thing at all.
How do you know that, are you part of the team? How do you know what money they are investing?
could it be the money from this community “pre orders” that they are risking?
It makes two of us.
Hello
I’m apologize if i hurt your feelings, seems that it didn’t come out right. I’m myself a small business owner and it’s nothing wrong in being in business after a profit.
My point was, that been trying to profit from this project is different from the original idea and motto of Bar,
“…the goal of making large format CNC technology available to everyone…”
Three partners, may drive the price up.
three partners vs two partners is not likely to make much of a difference.
If they loose money on the project, they are unlikely to keep working on it, and
that will undermine “…the goal of making large format CNC technology
available to everyone…”
Bar’s first CNC (makesmith) suffered exactly that fate, there wasn’t enough
profit margin so after the kickstarter, the product died.
I think you just mentioning it after I’ve pointed that up, because before my comments you did nothing but set up the pre order website.
why haven’t you attacked Logan, Bee, me, or any of the other people who have
listed maslow components for sale? We have far less vetting than these folks who
have been working with Bar for months on this project.
You’re welcome, but i would’ve loved to see all this points addressed before I pointed them out.
It shows to me how immature from a business stand point you are in my opinion. You just focused on collecting the money without giving a second thought about to how you would return money or a warranty policy or meet delivery dates, not a single word.
…
I see in my opinion a few red flags here.
You have posted a picture showing the samples just got past week.
In a normal chain of events, you do a research, order samples and commit to buy, it seems to me that you haven’t made any order yet?
they have been working for months before speaking up, using the exact same
suppliers that Bar used, ordering the exact same parts (with the exception of
the gearbox), why would they need to order samples?
The gearbox seems to be the same as the prior one, but with stronger gears
inside (due to the rash of gear failures we have been seeing since Bar’s last
order or gears.
You can come back at me saying those are the new and improved motors and the originals are well on their way, BUT that would be shooting yourself on the foot right? You haven’t deliver the older ones, and already showing the new model? who will want the older now? just saying, no good marketing.
I don’t buy the china guy at all, it’s not enough profit to support three partners, just my opinion.
you assume they are trying to
Now you are offering $200 deposit? if I was one of the pre order guys (if any) I would ask for $300 back right now.
go for it, you give up free shipping for that.
I really really hope you deliver what you’ve promised to this community, I do not own the truth and i hope I’m wrong.
you really seem to have a chip on your shoulder about these folks compared to
everyone else. Take a deep breath and try to figure out why.
In terms of trust and continuity, they are the direct hand-off from Bar, so if
anything I would expect them to get far more slack than anyone else posting kits
or parts, but you are treating them as if they are complete outsiders showing up
and assuming they are only here to rip people off.
David Lang
I was making a general statement, know nothing about that particular business, it’s principles, or where there funds come from. Certainly not involved, all I want to be is a retired slacker. Not doing that very well, but still trying.
Just reacting to the implication that profit is bad, hearing an awful lot of that recently. Like I said, soapbox
Hello again. It seems you have some new issues you would like to review. I’ll do my best to go through them one by one, please let me know if I miss anything.
Three partners may drive the price up.
Our price currently is a bit higher than Bar’s kit prices were. He successfully launched his project via kickstarter and raised over $300k. Doing this gave him the funds to secure order quantities MUCH larger than what we can afford at this time. His last motor order before he transitioned the relationship to us was 6000 pieces. Compared to our order of 1000 pieces, I would expect he received a noticeable price difference per unit. Our team size has nothing to do with how we set our prices. It seems like this is something you won’t agree with, but thats just how we operate.
All we did was set up a website.
I can see how it could look this way. However, we have been in deep discussions with Bar about us taking on distributing the kits and maintaining his vision for the project. He has been involved in everything from transitioning the vendor relationships to us as well as our pricing structure and pre-order plans. He also addressed the community about us being the new providers of the kits in the community wide newsletter that was sent out on October 3rd. Looking at your profile, I see you wouldn’t have received that message since your account has only been active for 48 hours.
We seem to not be experienced enough with Chinese manufacturers for you.
I’m not sure how you would be able to properly gauge our interactions with our suppliers without actually being involved in the discussions. TJ lives in China and has great standing relationships with them all, I have been to China myself on sourcing trips and Patrick has also done the same. I appreciate the concerns, but we are well aware of how Chinese sourcing works and have done our due diligence to ensure we are receiving everything we purchase.
You don’t think we purchased our motors yet.
You are correct in saying that the normal process is to research, order samples, and then commit to buy. After the purchase order is issued and before delivery is accepted, most companies receive what is called “QA samples” this allows the purchasing organization an opportunity to test the product that has been purchased in an end user environment to make sure that the manufacturing specs provided during the ordering phase have in fact been met by production. I’m aware you don’t think we know how to buy things from China, but anyone who purchases mechanical or electrical components is aware of QA testing and acceptance criteria before taking delivery of a large quantity of goods.
People that purchased a $499 pre-order should ask for $300 back.
They have every right an ability to do so. If they are ok with paying for the shipping when the kits are ready to go out, then downgrading to the $200 pre-order might be a viable option for them. We released a lower tier of pre-orders purely as a response to feedback we are receiving directly from people on our website. I’m sorry if this isn’t ok with you, but the value proposition for full price pre-orders is still valid while maintaining a $200 partial deposit.
You don’t “buy” the China guy at all.
He’s not for sale 
convincing you someone exists isn’t in our business model. We are focused on delivering the quality kits that bar created.
You are only writing to make members of this community aware of scammers and dreamers.
Those are two pretty heavily contrasting groups of people. I can’t say I appreciate slanderous comments from someone who has done little research into the situation of events that has lead up to us offering kits to the community. I appreciate your willingness to generalize, but I think you’re off the mark here.
In closing I think it is safe to assume you have no desire to see us successfully deliver our kits to anyone and have nothing but ill wishes for us. I wish you nothing but the best and can only assume that we are the reason why you are here. It wasn’t until after our pre-order site went live that you decided to create an account within this wonderful community of makers. I hope you get everything you are looking for here. It truly is a wonderful collection of minds.
-Chris
P.S. before you bring up how long this account has been open, my personal account is skilescm 
I think he’s said somewhere near 6000 kits
David Lang
I just want to add that I am sooo stoked that @MakerMadeCNC is going to be continuing to sell kits. I want to keep seeing kits out there and I want to keep working to push what is possible with large format CNC technology, but I was so burned out on dealing with taxes, shipping companies, customs, putting things in boxes, and the stress of having other people’s money. We were constantly fighting to put out a thousand little fires every day and I feel so much better being able to sit back and make things again. Having someone like @MakerMadeCNC step in and continue to push the project forwards so professionally and bring such great new life to the project is a dream for us.
I firmly believe they are not risking they own money, but the community members pre-order’s money.
I can see other options here, can you?
I’m really sorry you feel I’m “attacking” someone here. It’s JUST my opinion.
It is a BIG difference in selling an item you already have in stock, in contrast to be financed in advance by the community on a promise of delivery.
Please read the forum, they even show pictures of the samples. You are right "why would they need to order samples?
"
I would rather risk $12 than $500
Because they are the only ones selling a promise. I just trying to warn the community to be cautious. That’s all.
As far as I know, bar does not really know them.
I personally don’t know them either.
But this is what i know:
The only way for them to get pre orders is to promise an early delivery date than anyone else.
The pictures they have posted on October showing motors and boxes being taken by their man in china ARE STOCK pictures that the factory e-mail to just anyone requesting info on how they box and palletize. Just try it and you will get the same pictures. In case you wonder i’m not planning in selling kits, just did it out curiosity.
Probably he googled that. QA are used at an ENTERPRICE level when LARGE companies engage in BIG business with large factories to produce items, usually new products, companies also agree beforehand in QC, production times, random QC to ensure consistency in line production…….also QA are usually taken early FROM the production line. Anyways, none of this apply here, small companies like this will charge you for a sample and if you like it, just pay up front and wait for delivery. SO WHY THE BLUFF?
Are they planning on mail out empty boxes?.. because in the picture they’re showing kits being ready for labels on Monday, boxes look light to me, wouldn’t them be crushing the boxes on the bottom due to the weight of the kits? seems like someone took time to assemble and close the boxes just for the picture.
In closing I don’t know if they will deliver or not, I hope they do. I see them are already taking pre-orders for January, even when they haven’t delivered the ones from the first batch hmmm…
Chris says " I have nothing but ill wishes for us", not really, just sharing my concerns and opinion here.
Bar created this, and the community financed him to make it possible, I believe this OPEN SOURCE belongs to Bar AND the community, Chris is just using the community to finance his endeavor, branding it as his own, and coming back to the community with higher prices, way to go!
Happy thanksgiving to everyone!!! 
I miss the positive vibe in this post. I do see that in the rest of the community. I think there is no need to bully someone around. Specially not about full or empty boxes.
Hello again!
Just to address the new questions/comments.
It would be impossible for us to ship next week if we were relying on pre-order funds to pay for our components. It has been stated by multiple sources that the lead times for motors are 3 months. If we were using community funds to pay for these, we would be taking delivery of the motors around the end of December or even early January.
I’m not sure how to prove that are pictures are not stock photos. They were taken on a mobile device, so maybe view the meta data stored in the image file? Outside of that, I don’t really have any other ways to prove that the pictures were really taken by TJ.
The QA thing again… I didn’t just google how the QA process works. I have a full time job where I deal with this on a regular basis. Our QA pieces were taken from the actual production run and mailed to me by TJ. He is only in charge of sourcing and logistics, not QA validation. These units were opened to verify the new gears that were recently manufactured were inside. I’m not sure where the line is between a small company and a large company, but blindly ordering and taking delivery of 1000 motors doesn’t sound like an ideal process for a business of any size. The original samples we purchased to test weren’t from our production run so it wouldn’t make sense to just accept our order without performing a test from that batch.
The boxes are 100% empty in the picture. Our labels are attached to the boxes before the kits are populated. This lets the consolidation team know which power adapter to put in the box and if that specific order includes the flash drive with sample projects.
I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and I look forward to hearing from everyone after they receive their kits!
-Chris
Hi Raleigh, this seems a heated point for some reason. Have you placed an order with us? If you have and would like it refunded we are more than happy to do so in a direct email exchange. I’ll offer the same for any concerns or questions you might have about our sourcing practices. We have worked hard to remain 100% transparent with anyone who messages us directly.
Otherwise, I’d suggest we save the top of the forum board for posts dedicated to community projects and support, as Bar intended. Is that fair?
I agree 100% to that, but since this forum has become a place of income for some, please understand that users will have questions that you may like or not. You can either ban me, or let others read and form their own opinion, that’s all.
Did I lie on something I said?
Playing with the number of preorders and kits left is first page marketing book, reducing the number of available kits create a sense of urgency and offering free shipping a sense of opportunity, who knows how many preorders you really have, if any. You perfectly know I did not preorder from you, but still take the opportunity to bluff.
It takes two to tango, if you don’t want my opinion, please stop coming back with explanations. Is that fair?
Well…probably TJ share the pictures with the factory and then they shared with everyone else 
This is an pre-existing and already commercialized item/line of production, unfortunately they won’t stop or modify anything for just a small run of 1000 motors. If you already buy from factories in china you should know this.
Yes you have to buy blind, for such a small order (on international trade,1000 dc motors is just a tiny, tiny run that will be probably consolidated in a shipping container).
Also I’ve seen this gear box all over the internet, I don’t think they are fabricating it, but just assembling them.
Me too!
Just one more thing
From the Alibaba etnom web site “Short Lead time :under quality and quantity assured ,sample or small order will be sent in 7-15 days, bulk or customized order about 25days.” NOT 3 MONHTS!
You right! I’m apologize for that. The positive vibe in this forum is unreal, you don’t see that everywhere. It’s just I would not like to see people from this forum get burned.
It make no sense to assemble the boxes and then take the time to close them empty. It just looks to me as a marketing picture. He never said the kits were not populated, he did say kits are ready for label and ship on Monday and posted a deceiving picture, probably he was not expecting anyone catches the bluff.
I’ve said enough, I will let the people form their own opinions.
Hey, it’s Mike from the future again (I’m using MITT, it’s complicated, you can read my profile for more info). I don’t usually poke around here in the past but sometimes circumstances necessitate.
I’d like to address some of your concerns Horizon/@R_Raleigh. First off you need to know that I am posting from the future, and yes, I already know you will scoff at that and try to tell me it’s not possible. Go ahead, scoff away (you can’t hurt feelings into the future - think about it). Secondly you should know that the fine gentlemen at @MakerMadeCNC fulfill their promise with flying colors! Most of their orders are received ahead of schedule. There were a few very minor hiccups in the first batch but they were always extremely accommodating and quick to make it right. Since then batches have continued to ship quickly and each subsequent batch has shown improvements. They have even gone above and beyond by helping people with parts who didn’t even order one of their kits! As far as your concerns about them being scam artists or whatever slanderous titles you have given them, that could not be farther from the truth, they have proven that they are upstanding and honest.
I can’t give too much information here without violating the PCFC, but I can tell you that you also eventually learn to be respectful and considerate of other people. It takes longer than any of us expected but it does happen eventually. I’m sorry that right now you feel the need to put down others in order to prop up your ego. Don’t worry though, over time you grow out of it.
To the rest of you, please be patient with @R_Raleigh, right now he is tactless and abrasive at best but your graciousness and patience with him is very helpful in the long run.