Doombot
USA
Asked
— Edited
If you can hand-build V4s and test them at your facility, why not offer both versions, the made in china "pedestrian" version, and the "made in Canada" version? I'm sure the Canadian would be 4-5 times more expensive, but would be nice to have a choice. Guitar companies do this all the time, you get your Chinese $200 B.C.Rich Bronze version and you get your $6000 USA handmade version. Just thought that may apply here too.
All I have for reference is the V3, which is a simple board in comparison.
It's been mentioned before that EZ-b will never be a kit because it is not open-source.
As for hand building v4's - that takes a day per board to do. It's simply not possible. However, our first batch of ezb's which are shipping next week are made in Calgary
Making in North America sounds good, but it costs literally 10 times as much. Put it this way, the quotes we received from north American manufacturers would cost over $100 per unit in quantities of 1,000's to manufacture the EZ-B - that's without markup for the business to operate (i.e. staff, website, software development, etc.). Also, the time frame quotes we received from North American manufacturers would have the product shipping in Fall 2014.
The few hundred that we are getting manufactured in Canada for the pre-orders are costing us more than we sold them for. We lose tens and tens thousands of dollars by manufacturing them in Canada. However, it's not all being done by a manufacturer to assemble the units. We are doing most of the work in-house to save money, which takes us away from doing our real job - which is adding new features and programming the software to make the product better
Trust me, it's not that we don't continue to try and try and try to have these manufactured in North America. We're constantly receiving quotes - but the time frame and costs do not co-operate with our vision. We cannot sell EZ-B v4's for $299 to you - that's just not fair - specifically since we can have the work done overseas for a fraction of the cost. And anyone who has experience with our v3's know our chose of oversea factories produce great quality.
China gets a lot of negativity from North America, and I respect that Americans feel the Chinese are taking away the work - but the fact remains that North American manufacturing costs are just not fair to the consumer. If at any point we could find a North American manufacturer to match our prices, we would switch in a heartbeat - You have my word on that!
I'm the most positive person I know - I have faith that someday EZ-Robot will be manufactured entirely in North America
I'm in year three of my business plan and no profits yet. *stress*
There would be a video of Johnny 5 making robots here but youtube doesn't have that scene lol.
Exactly my agenda. EZ-b just made industrial manufacturing robots accessible to the garage builder. Hence dropping labor costs and single handedly making everyone an entrepreneur. I already have designs on how to cheaply make MY products. Very cheap industrial robots made from parts I already have access to.
I'm quite sure the V4 can be programmed to build itself.
It seems I am one of the Lone Robot Builders in my town, that's fine by me :-} People started asking me questions and well I showed them some pictures I had taken with my cellphone, they couldn't believe what I have built so far.
I truly believe once the V4 comes and the robots start coming alive, it could spark a fire :-}
So screw those companies that didn't think the EZ-Robot product wouldn't sell, there is so much that can be done, heck we all might just be in the beginning of something very historical :-}
J