Patience grasshopper, patience

Recent posts to the MakerBot Operators group show some people’s frustrations with this growing company. 1  Yes, they’re out of stock of electronics and other parts, but they’re also doing their best to crank out as many kits as possible.

Overall, I’d rather have them churning out robot kits than keeping spare parts in stock.  The plans for all of the electronics are open and free – you could have someone else fabricate them or build them yourself.  Still others have started up businesses selling lots of replacement parts and even upgrade kits.

We might be impatient for our kits, but they’re literally devoting their weekends and free time to getting these kits to us.  In fact, it’s their feverish dream to get a MakerBot kit into your hands.  You’re just not going to get this kind of devotion and service anywhere else.

I have one piece of advice if you’re waiting for your kit to arrive or replacement parts to be back in stock:  start designing stuff right now.  You already know what you want to build.  Just create a library of things you want to churn out.  Upload them to Thingiverse, get feedback modify, and improve them.  Heck, improve designs posted by others.

Your kit will be here before you know it and you’ll be happily (and woozily) sniffing ABS fumes too.  :)

1. Photo courtesy of changhg [↩]