FireBox: A Tiny DCC Train Controller

[garethashenden]

Its a shame the project has been canelled, but that's always a risk with Kickstarter. At least he's up front about it instead of letting it drag on for years.

[EspeeGoldenState]

It’s almost deja vu.

While I can’t say it was all the suggestions/additions to the original design, it’s more than disappointing that a 6 month wait comes to this. Especially being so close to RTM as the email claims.

[Rivet Miscounter]

I got the same email. That is more than a little disappointing. 

Same assessment about said e-mail.   And I get to eat two of them, joy.

[C855B]

[sigh]  Seriously biting my tongue on this one.

I received the e-mail(s), too. NOT a surprise, David has let me down before. I'll take the partial refund and call this chapter "closed". 

[C855B]

I just re-read David's mea culpa. I'm not sure I like the terms where he's taking a 20% cut for "his time". He accepted the risk of a project that could "go south" totally on his determination, and asked the community to fund his out-of-pocket expenses based on his reporting and pictures of prototypes. We took the dollars-and-cents risk, but I believe that his risk in the project was his time, and he is not entitled to compensation beyond direct reimbursements for a failure of his own making.

Am I off base here?   

[wcfn100]

Am I off base here?   

Not at all.

Jason

[reinhardtjh]

[sigh]  Seriously biting my tongue on this one.

I received the e-mail(s), too. NOT a surprise, David has let me down before. I'll take the partial refund and call this chapter "closed". 

Because of the outcome with his 3-D modeling company, I had serious doubts but thought it was worth a chance.  I didn't think he'd do it twice.  Silly me.

I just re-read David's mea culpa. I'm not sure I like the terms where he's taking a 20% cut for "his time". He accepted the risk of a project that could "go south" totally on his determination, and asked the community to fund his out-of-pocket expenses based on his reporting and pictures of prototypes. We took the dollars-and-cents risk, but I believe that his risk in the project was his time, and he is not entitled to compensation beyond direct reimbursements for a failure of his own making.

Am I off base here?   

Similar feelings here.

[ridinshotgun]

I just re-read David's mea culpa. I'm not sure I like the terms where he's taking a 20% cut for "his time". He accepted the risk of a project that could "go south" totally on his determination, and asked the community to fund his out-of-pocket expenses based on his reporting and pictures of prototypes. We took the dollars-and-cents risk, but I believe that his risk in the project was his time, and he is not entitled to compensation beyond direct reimbursements for a failure of his own making.

Am I off base here?   

No not at all and why I found it more than a little troubling.

Because of the outcome with his 3-D modeling company, I had serious doubts but thought it was worth a chance.  I didn't think he'd do it twice.  Silly me.

Similar feelings here.

Yeah I won't be touching anything involving him in the future.  Wonder if he will be back here now?

[CodyO]

Can anyone share what he said to announce the project being cancelled?
 

[C855B]

... I didn't think he'd do it twice. ...

Thrice. He splashed his signal head project here (and elsewhere), I placed a >$1K order with money to his account, and he got cold feet, that he couldn't take the risk. To his credit he refunded the entire amount, end of discussion, and I wasn't out 'cept for disappointed expectations.

Anyway, I was as skeptical as you were, but enough of the right words were said and committing to one wasn't that big a risk. Great ideas, but sorta short on execution. 

[C855B]

Can anyone share what he said to announce the project being cancelled?

Here's the "word soup" I received:

The end of the road – Everyone, thank you so much for your support of FireBox thus far. In the past year, I've learned so much from the experience of designing and preparing a product like FireBox for the market. At this time, however, I cannot continue to develop FireBox. I am writing this update to be as transparent as possible and make the situation a win-win for everyone involved. First, where does the project stand? I currently have several pieces of working hardware sitting on the bench. I've gone through FCC testing with and passed. The software is about 75% of the way done, but there are still hundreds of hours of work left to finish the software and make it ready for customers. If the project is so close to completion, why can't I just ship boards and finish the project? It all comes down to a simple equation of time and money. I am a student, studying outdoor product design and development (OPDD) at Utah State University. My focus right now should rightly be my education. As such, my time is very limited for projects like this. I spent my entire summer, the whole thing, on this project, and at the prices I promised and the quantity that you as backers demanded, I would hardly have made anything for my time. As the hardware became more complex to improve the safety of the product, the numbers got pushed to the point where I would barely break even. My already limited time was not getting compensated financially, and would likely never be compensated for financially. Additionally, once the product got into your hands, I would have to suddenly support hundreds of backers with brand-new hardware, most of you having only basic computer skills and no engineering knowledge, making in-field debugging nearly impossible. So, it is with regret that I am having to cancel this project. It makes no sense to continue on with it financially or time-wise. I have too many other commitments and there is no incentive to continue. Here's what I'm going to do to make the situation right for everyone involved. I will be as transparent as possible: * Put together as much remaining money as possible. Developing a hardware product is an expensive venture. After Kickstarter's fees and credit card fees, I received ~$9500 to develop and ship FireBox. I spent ~$1000 on non-refundable business expenses, things such as keeping my website online, completing FCC testing, and getting to and from the test lab in Colorado. I spent another ~$1750 on non-sellable assets such as hardware prototyping and small tools, and another ~$750 on sellable assets. I will sell off the assets I can and return that money, leaving about $6750. * Pay myself pennies on the hour for the time I put into the project. An engineer of my experience level would usually be paid at least $30 an hour, and I estimate I spent about 1000 hours of my time on this project over the summer. You can do the math. If I were to compensate myself with even the US federal minimum wage, you would not be getting any money back. Because I appreciate the support and recognize that these are hard times, I will take $2000 for my time, leaving $4750 of the original $9500 I got from Kickstarter. That's 50% of the total after credit card fees and Kickstarter fees. * Redistribute the remaining funds to backers, through PayPal. This will work on a request basis. If you would like to receive your refund, you will need to submit the backer survey with your PayPal address and indicate you would like a refund. * Finally, I will open-source all of the designs and software that have been created through this Kickstarter campaign, and they will be available soon on Github. Hopefully they will be of use to you or someone who might pick up this project. * If you're still interested in FireBox, I suggest that you check out DCC++ EX, a project to which I have contributed thousands of lines of code over the course of the development of FireBox. Your contributions to this project have helped to fuel that project and make it as successful as it has been in the last few months. Everyone, thank you again for your support. I'm sorry the project had to end this way, and I hope that the transparency I have provided will help to make this a better experience for everyone. Please stay tuned for your surveys! As a final note, if you have questions about how kickstarter works, I would suggest reading up on it. Kickstarter is not a store, instead it is a crowdfunding site. As such, there is no guarantee that a project will be successful.

[eric220]

I just re-read David's mea culpa. I'm not sure I like the terms where he's taking a 20% cut for "his time". He accepted the risk of a project that could "go south" totally on his determination, and asked the community to fund his out-of-pocket expenses based on his reporting and pictures of prototypes. We took the dollars-and-cents risk, but I believe that his risk in the project was his time, and he is not entitled to compensation beyond direct reimbursements for a failure of his own making.

Am I off base here?   

Not at all.  Here are the relevant bits from the word soup:

So, it is with regret that I am having to cancel this project. It makes no sense to continue on with it financially or time-wise. I have too many other commitments and there is no incentive to continue.

An engineer of my experience level would usually be paid at least $30 an hour, and I estimate I spent about 1000 hours of my time on this project over the summer. You can do the math. If I were to compensate myself with even the US federal minimum wage, you would not be getting any money back. Because I appreciate the support and recognize that these are hard times, I will take $2000 for my time...

If the project had run into insurmountable technical problems, or something out of David's control, it would be a different discussion.  Taking $2,000 for himself as compensation when he just gave up because he got overwhelmed is pretty classless.  Fortunately for him, I doubt anyone is going to pay for a lawyer over an average of about $14 per person, but this is a surefire way to make sure there's no support the next time he wants to crowdfund something.

[CRL]

The ethical rules for payment are generally in this order:

1. Pay the government.
2. Pay your vendors.
3. Pay your employees. (State paycheck laws may require this ahead of vendors)
4. Pay your investors.
5. Pay anyone left not in above categories.
6. Pay yourself.

You can make argument with the order of the first 5 categories, but item 6 is an ethical lock, imho.

[thomasjmdavis]

CRL - You forgot "pay the bank"-  this would come after employees and before vendors, at least in my experience as a vendor.  And long before investors, in my experience as an investor.

I knew it was a gamble.  But on the other hand, I assumed that the "$30 an hour" engineer could estimate, reasonably accurately, how many hours it would take to program the controller.

Additionally, once the product got into your hands, I would have to suddenly support hundreds of backers with brand-new hardware, most of you having only basic computer skills and no engineering knowledge, making in-field debugging nearly impossible.

Which was a condition known at the beginning of the project.  Provision for this must have been in the business plan.  Oh, wait....

Personally, I was programming a Univac mainframe in 1971. .  I have a 90s era Hewlett Packard server that I use as an endtable.  Managed to get JMRI to run on a rather obscure dialect of Ubuntu, granted only with a lot of cussing, but without having to call anybody's customer support (although I may have asked a few questions on the nearby DCC threads).  I recently assembled 10 pair of MT 1015s without having to use any extra springs.  And my son is an electronics engineer who programs controllers for robotics applications, in case I ran into anything I could not handle.

A well, back to plan A....I have a 5 amp shield around here somewhere to glomb onto my Arduino mega.

[CRL]

^^^^ Re pay the bank... I didn’t mention paying the bank in this instance since this guy obviously didn’t go to a bank with this venture, but in other situations, you’re correct.