Alternatives to the Printrbot Simple - 3D Printing: Build your Own 3D Printer and Print your own 3D Objects - page 189

$25,000 to produce about 50-100 of his first Printrbot 3D printer. He ended up
raising $830,827 in about 30 days (see Figure 10.5 .)
Figure 10.5 The first Printrbot Kickstarter project.
Over 1,800 backers chipped in the money needed to allow Brook to make his
dream a reality. He offered more than a dozen different backer levels, but a minim-
um pledge of $499 would provide one backer with a Printrbot kit and all the parts
and electronics necessary to build it. Higher backer levels offered larger versions
of the kit that Brook quickly prototyped and created after seeing the initial demand
and hearing backer requests for a larger printer.
Printrbot wasn't the first 3D printer on Kickstarter, but it was one of the most suc-
cessful. Since then, Kickstarter has continually offered a number of 3D printers
and kits to backers. It's one of the best ways to get a new 3D printer at a great
price, but it also comes with risks. Kickstarter projects often fail to raise enough
funds (backers are charged only if full funding is received) so some projects never
get off the ground. Other projects raise the funds but through lack of proper finan-
cial oversight and discipline, sometimes run out of funds. There are even a couple