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Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on October 24, 2009.
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Exclusive early-download access to the Mini-T standard in progress, sneak peaks behind the scenes, and more!
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Your own 10 cm piece of the original MakerBeam production run!
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Gold-tone anodized 10 cm piece of MakerBeam, laser etched with serial number! PLUS: Signed certificate of authenticity, framed in MakerBeam! Thanked as "Contributor" in standard.
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All $32 perks plus a Beta kit of 50 beams of varying lengths and Beta connector kit! (est. delivery date: February 2010). Thanked as "Beta Tester" in open standard credits.
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Receive special Alpha kit by Christmas! 50 lengths of MakerBeam, Alpha prototype connector kit, PLUS special 3-d printed prototype of our plastic connectors! Thanked as "Alpha Tester" in open standard credits.
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Institutional Level: receive at LEAST 50 meters of MakerBeam, plus connectors, during beta release, AND Alpha kit in December. Why not have your spring semester 2010 class join us in beta testing? Thanked as "Institutional Sponsor" in open standard credits. Bigger pledges get you more beam and connectors, and more. Contact us!
Project By
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MakerBeam is Sam Putman, Glenn Powers and James Coddington. We are tinkers, geeks, musicians, builders and scientists, and we love cool toys and open source projects.
Looks like SparkFun has this stuff up for sale.
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10540
I love the idea of this idea. I build a lot of small hobby projects and I'd love a really flexible 'erector set' I could use to brace it all together. When & Where can we buy this stuff?
Hello? Anybody home?
So it's January now. Still nothing.
So where can we buy this stuff? It's been over a year since it got funded.
I overlooked the email last SPring that requested my address. Can you send me an email at marty@schwimmerlegal.com and I'll send the info? thanks!
Hi Otto,
We just received your address yesterday. You're the third or maybe fourth person who seems to have had this problem, which Kickstarter has fixed with site updates. We'll send a personal email follow-up and get you your stuff. Thanks!
Somehow I haven't seen my piece, yet. I coulda sworn I gave an address but Kickstarter just asked me again. Assuming it went thru this time & I should be looking for something in the mail soon. Or haven't the bottom tier pledge rewards gone out, yet?
Also when can I buy a bunch? Ack.
Hi! MakerBeam is alive and well, and behind schedule. Our last update was a bit more than a week ago; our next one will be soon. Good things are happening, but that doesn't always translate into much, if anything, to report.
The lack of updates from the project leaders is beginning to concern me. 4 months ago, the sparse news on the website said the project would go live at MakerFaire. Guess what? No MakerBeam people were spotted. Please, either call off the project or update us all on the status. I've tried posting and writing to the developers, to no avail.
How did this project get almost $18k?? This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. I use 80-20 extrusion all the time, someone please give me $18k!
In the video, "and there you have a nice little enclosure". Nope, that's a "frame" or "closed bracket", not an "enclosure." And since when is extruded bar called a bracket? I'd have a bit more faith in the project if the language was correct.
MakerBeam,
Can you explain the main differences between your concept and 80-20?
Chris
MakerBeam - Its 21 March...update on shipping progess would be appreciated...hopefully things are continuing to move forward. ohararp.
Hey MakerBeam Team, haven't heard any updates in a while. What's the latest news?
Wow this is really cool. I just found this while searching for information on 3d printers. Too bad I didn't see this earlier. Do you have pricing info yet?
Looking forward to getting them, in Austin, TX - anyone else here?
Nice Idea, got some additions in mind already - However I hope your stuff is cheaper than MicroRAX - Holy cow.
Any update on the $128 contributors? Still on for a 2/2010 ship?
WOW!
Well Vidor, I can only quote our project page:
"Mini-T is a miniature version of larger T-slot building systems."
To date, MakerBeam and MicroRAX are the only 10x10mm profiles out there. Fischerteknik is 15x15mm, made of nylon, and otherwise substantially different; everyone else is larger still, starting at 20mm.
XBeams, from what I can gather from the Internet Archive, was simply re-branded inch-pitch T-slot with an innovative connector system. Minitech, which you link to, appears to sell 45x45mm T-slot; this is not what we mean by "mini" in Mini-T! TSlots bottoms out at 20x20mm; this is four times the size of MakerBeam.
We are rapidly reaching the point where our product will speak for itself. A note about open-source, however: the very root of open source development in the free software movement was in fact reimplementation of copywritten code. GNU is GNU's Not Unix because Unix was copywritten by AT&T and RMS wanted something like it that was freely available.
MakerBeam is not like this, however; our work represents significant original design, bringing together several good and obvious ideas into something that wil work better than the sum of the parts. Like a platform should!
As for what those good ideas are, well, we've been playing our cards close to the vest; Christmas carols are in the air and our Alphas will have full stockings soon enough...
I dont know why this is being launched as an "open source hardware". These systems have been around for decades, parts and interconnects are easily available, and are marketed for several different industries including architecture, exhibit displays, and robot hobbyists. A few years ago another company attempted a similar (for profit) under the name X-Beams.
They also sold "kits" and I'm sure they held a trademark, and they STILL went under. How is MakeBeams going to compete? What are you selling that is unique?
But really- this X-slot extruded aluminum is NOT new, and NO reason to offer it open source- since inevitably it IS patented somewhere. In my eye, Open Source is NEW, something that has not been copyrighted before. How can you open source LEGACY source material?
http://www.tslots.com/
http://www.minitecframing.com/
http://www.parker.com
Wow Vitaly, Contraptor looks great! A great supplement to GridBeam and 1" T-slot. Probably also works well with 25mm T-slot systems, 4 mm is not a lot of difference.
Linear motion is near or at the top of our design list. We're devoting all our attention right now to getting the details of the connector and bracket system down, for delivery with the Alpha kits. When our first batch of beam arrives in mid-November, we'll be in a much better position to design the next generation of parts, which will certainly include linear slides.
Hey Sam,
Congratulations on making it over the top and proving that construction sets are hot!
Looking forward to get Makerbeam alpha kit and design some parts to interface Mini-T with the angle profile of our Contraptor set, which is also open source (pardon the shameless plug :)
Our set is mostly for Cartesian robots and for some tight spots Contraptor parts are a bit too bulky/heavy, but 1cm Makerbeam would be just right. Have you created any designs for linear motion on Makerbeam? I'd be interested to see them.
Again, congrats on the very convincing win.
Vitaly
http://www.contraptor.org
Adding my congratulations on making it over the top! Good going!!
I also agree with the comment on further contrasting your design to existing T-slot product. When I first saw this I figured it was something from inexperienced designers who did not even know about 80/20 company, etc. I think the relationship needs to be made clearer.
Excited to have parts to play with in Feb :) Keep up the energy and progress!
Over the top indeed
Now if only I could figure out how to knit with it ... hmmm ... if someone makes a kittie with it, I'll knit a coat for it and send it to them (really.). Congrats Sam ... I can hardly wait to start playing with the kit!!!
Congrats on the win!
congrats on getting funded! booyakasha
We are over the top! Evil Mad Scientist Lab FTW!
Robot. Spider. WOW! I need one now.
I think this is pretty cool; this opens up a host of new applications for t-slot that I had not considered before. However, I have a small suggestion -- the first time I read this, I wondered what the big deal was because of my faulty memory of what the smallest generally available t-slot is. I think it might help people seeing it the first time for you to add a para or two about what the current state of the marketplace for t-slot extrusion is.
Chris gives a good answer here: the screw sizes will differ but the joining plates will have identical proportions or nearly so. Different screw sizes come directly from different slot sizes in this case.
The different profiles (Mini-T, MicroRAX) are going to be stronger choices for different applications, I expect, and being able to use them together will make the whole idea more flexible.
There's a blog post coming on all this; stay tuned.
I am really looking forward to this
Thank you Sam and Elmo. It is amazing that we independently created nearly the same specification. It should be quite easy to keep our products compatible going forward.
Our joining plates will be practically identical, you would need to use MakerBeam nuts and screws for the Mini-T portion and MicroRAX nut and screws for the MicroRAX portion.
MakerBeam as you know is a miniature version of the typical t-slot. MicroRAX has a modified cross section that allows for some unique joining and alignment methods that will be available shortly.
I agree with Elmo, good competition is essential to creating a great market.
Surely someone will release compatible connectors, maybe even you (should be good for business reaching out to MicroRAX customers and vice versa). It's good to have more than one "standard" to suite different needs etc. as long as they are compatible!
Yeah the MicroRAX people are good guys, they've pledged to our project actually. Real gents!
I don't know that I'd call it VERY similar, but it is also 10x10mm in basic cross section. They were nice enough to send me a sample when we found out about each other. There are some intriguing differences.
We call it a mutual win: taking measurements on MicroRAX has convinced me that Mini-T will do the job it's intended for, and watching MakerBeam draw backing has I'm sure given TwinTec some confidence that there's a market out there.
FYI there is a VERY similar system offered here: http://www.microrax.com
Exactly what I need!
Your homepage has been linked at http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/linkdump200909
Way to go Sam! Congratulations on passing the halfway point.