new55 kickstarter has begun

[koh303]

They've been making images with various versions of their film for a couple years now. I think their budget is sort of middle of the road. They've got fans pulling to the low end as sort of a glorified DIY open source product, and people at the other end wanting abundances of cheap mass produced film. Gotta start somewhere.

Just reading the risks and challenges seems to be in contrary to the KS rules. Now i am not here to defend or protest those rules, but they are there to sort of protect the supporters of any project from giving money to things that will get funded, but then never get off the ground as far as production.

The guy who is running it seems to have an extensive background in design and manufacturing, which makes the goal they set even more strange.
Perhaps if they had matching funding from an external source...

The entire "risk summary" list is concerning due to some many open ends to have yet to be figured out, but most of all what does "Access to facilities and tools could be interrupted" mean? Is it a weather advisory, or a financial one? or perhaps something else...

Yes, they have been making some cool things, but if you read the blog you will see that recently all the work they have put in up to now has gone down the drain due to various suppliers and future plans that did not work out, and they recently needed to "start from scratch" (which is in the risk summary as well even now...). So i feel like there is fair chance that after 400K$ have been invested by two bit folk like us, they might have to "start from scratch" again, which might require yet another 400K$ to get off the ground. There is something i can't put my finger on that makes this feel not a realistic projection of bringing a product to market.

[koh303]

I am posting a note form the New55 cheif with regard to some of my concerns from APUG:

Good that you realize this is hard, and risky. That's what we want.

As far as the machines you refer to, in-house there is to be an edge taper of our own design. There are no steps in this product that require folding or splicing - these have been eliminated. The coating of the receiver is the concern, and the substrate, as mentioned. Making a new receiver sheet isn't easy since Polaroid kept the process a secret even from their own people, so we do have to nearly start from scratch. Also there is a lot of information, not in our intentionally conservative description, that has been published on http://new55project.blogspot.com. We put in what we needed to, and even that, as you say, is quite long.

Much of what we make today is via contract. Paper will be converted and die cut and metal parts obtained from the vendors. There isn't much reason to purchase and install roll to roll machinery that only has to run for a week to make the yardage needed for the product. There are several toll coating operations looking for contracts who can do that, for a price. We plan to do assembly, and packaging, here, and have developed handy dark work chambers that have been successful, and can be duplicated.

Thank you for your pledge - the comments you make are right on but you missed one thing - the per sheet price - that is also a common and valid objection. We are trying this on Kickstarter because so many of the interested supporters have insisted on it. The reaction we get from this is very valuable and tells us about the viability, or not, of new large format materials.

Thanks for your support and obviously you know about edge tapers and commercial paper working machinery, I'd welcome your advice on specific aspect of them.

Bob

[jcc]

I am posting a note form the New55 cheif with regard to some of my concerns from APUG:

Good that you realize this is hard, and risky. That's what we want.

As far as the machines you refer to, in-house there is to be an edge taper of our own design. There are no steps in this product that require folding or splicing - these have been eliminated. The coating of the receiver is the concern, and the substrate, as mentioned. Making a new receiver sheet isn't easy since Polaroid kept the process a secret even from their own people, so we do have to nearly start from scratch. Also there is a lot of information, not in our intentionally conservative description, that has been published on http://new55project.blogspot.com. We put in what we needed to, and even that, as you say, is quite long.

Much of what we make today is via contract. Paper will be converted and die cut and metal parts obtained from the vendors. There isn't much reason to purchase and install roll to roll machinery that only has to run for a week to make the yardage needed for the product. There are several toll coating operations looking for contracts who can do that, for a price. We plan to do assembly, and packaging, here, and have developed handy dark work chambers that have been successful, and can be duplicated.

Thank you for your pledge - the comments you make are right on but you missed one thing - the per sheet price - that is also a common and valid objection. We are trying this on Kickstarter because so many of the interested supporters have insisted on it. The reaction we get from this is very valuable and tells us about the viability, or not, of new large format materials.

Thanks for your support and obviously you know about edge tapers and commercial paper working machinery, I'd welcome your advice on specific aspect of them.

Bob

After following you folks or a couple of years, an underlying tone seems to keep surfacing—fear of failure. Understandably, no for-profit organization wants to be deployed in an environment where survival is slim to none. And if this Kickstarter turns out well (which I hope it will), will that be enough to convince you that this is worth doing? If you just wanted to make it a side project, you didn't have to go to press with it. You could have quietly been making small batches by hand, and no one would be the wiser. What will convince you to come out of this "side project that we didn't really want a Kickstarter, but 'so many of the interested supporters insisted on it'" mentality?

[StoneNYC]

My guess is that if they can get all the setup done with the funds, TIP and other partners 20x24 etc, will make an order large enough to keep them going...

But I agree there is a lot going on...

Big risk, big reward...

[Pete Watkins]

I was at the Photo / Camera show at the NEC in Birmingham (crap, it's in Solihul which is well outside Birmingham) and I asked the bloke on the Impossible stand abour 55 and he said that so much equipment was scrapped that it was never going to happen under "Impossible".
Pete.

[StoneNYC]

I was at the Photo / Camera show at the NEC in Birmingham (crap, it's in Solihul which is well outside Birmingham) and I asked the bloke on the Impossible stand abour 55 and he said that so much equipment was scrapped that it was never going to happen under "Impossible".
Pete.

They told me this too, but they would BUY the film as a re-seller...

[bracan]

Im in for one box.
Keep rollin guys!

[arca andy]

Having bemoaned the passing of Type 55 for years now I thought I should put my (small amount) of money where my mouth is...I hope they make it!!

[scm]

Update #1 - 17% Funded in 12% of Time

[Andrew O'Neill]

I hope this picks up more momentum (as it's moving slow) and is successful!