Suggestion: Buy a ton of boards in bulk and sell them to us

[jordanlambrecht]

I (and a ton of other people most likely) don't want to deal with the whole manufacturing process of getting a custom board made. Totally fine doing the soldering, but dealing with a fabrication company sounds like a headache and is a huge barrier of entry for me. You should consider buying them in bulk and selling them =]

[pikkmarg]

Since all of this is Open Sourced then figuring out the production, investment and operational costs that would entail with mass producing the project could be calculated.

The beauty of open source is that anyone can build upon the initial work. Product development is a really complicated task and mass producing anything will bring forth many legal and customer support challenges which need a lot of capital.

If you have the capital, time and means to do so then go ahead and produce a ton of them to sell if you feel like there is enough interest to for the volume. Just read the license and go about it in a respectful manner.

As this is an active project then changes might occur and updates made to the design. If you have thousands of units sitting in a warehouse while the project found a more reliable way of doing task X, then moving the stuff will probably be harder.

The other beauty of open source is community and there are group buys with people putting together the devices too.

For example: #173

[rbaron]

@jordanlambrecht I've been thinking about that more seriously recently. I would love to get a batch going. I haven't done that because selling hardware is hard. Testing, packaging, taxes, dealing with returns. But I think doing informal group orders may be a good first approach for me.

Many OSHW electronics people I look up to go the crowdsupply.com route. I understand they abstract away all these hurdles. That's also something I would consider applying to if there's interest.

[jordanlambrecht]

@rbaron I think that's a great idea. You've put a lot of effort into this project, and I think it's more than fair to open up a revenue stream with it. Hell, even offering the 3D printed chasis could work.

I honestly do view it as removing a barrier of entry for a lot of people. Not everyone can afford a 3D printer, and a lot of people most likely get stuck at the board manufacturing part. If you remove those two roadblocks, this goes from being an advanced-level project to an easy one with an amazing entry point for those who are just getting started with the hobby, parents/teachers teaching kids about hardware/IoT, botanists that want to implement it, etc. The more people that are exposed to open-source projects like this, the further the ideology and importance of open-source spreads.

[dcgrove]

I would be in for a handful.

[fabian727]

@dcgrove then go for it. as posted by pikkmarg there are always some devices spare:

For example: #173