It may for the manufacturer, but as for me it’s costing me money to help get it developed, but i don’t care about making money in this case, i just want to develop & bring a good lantern to the market where such a needed good quality & well designed light has been unavailable up until now.
I guess this depends on where you are in the world. Here in the US, Mini-USB is nearly impossible to find anymore. Micro is widespread, and USB-C is quickly taking over. Within a few years C will have taken hold and micro will start to become harder to find.
Wow. Good job Lexel. Some of us have long ago made an offer to help pay for prototype building if needed. As far as myself, the offer still stands. I know you already built the first prototype, and I’m assuming you will build this one too. Let me know where to donate funds when the time comes.
So far i have taken donations towards the costs of the development & have some to send to Lexel to cover his costs too. Maybe i should start a list somewhere?
Why don’t you use kickstarter? there is a lot of successful shitty lantern projects (like here, here and here) i don’t see why a good lantern like this would fail
you just need a cool looking video presentation with nice a music and you’re done :cowboy_hat_face:
Maybe for the second version of the lantern, but not the first.
The 1st one is the basis for a beast of a lantern.
We may plan to incorporate boost drivers for the 2nd lantern, USB charging/outputs, etc.
Now that would require a large investment, but would work on Kickstarter since we would only need the funds, but we already have acquired the full knowledge to make a good lantern.
Very true, for the first version i would like to keep this a project of BLF for the members of BLF to get it started, then one the first production run is done and sales are rolling for the V1, then we can look at that for a more deluxe model.
If you are not totally naive, there could be good funding available from V1, to put towards V2.
E.g. the Q8 generated quite a lot of funds, simply from the affiliate link used to buy it from BG at the BLF price. Which was entirely reasonable, and Wim shared it out amongst the extended team.
Get V1 built first though, it’s looking good, I may even have to express an interest soon. And forget about Kickstarter, ugh.
Thorfire / Sofirn / misc retailers sell and ship the light.
BLF members get a special discount.
Thorfire / Sofirn continue to sell the light indefinitely at regular retail price.
The Kickstarter model is typically a bit different:
BLF designs the light.
The lantern project team (LPT) sells the light and collects money. Early backers get a special discount.
LPT pays Thorfire / Sofirn to manufacture the light, and then LPT buys the entire production run.
LPT ships the light to people, or pays Thorfire / Sofirn to do so.
Basically, we’re not using Kickstarter because we’re not personally trying to make a profit on it. We’re just trying to make something nice for people, and to encourage flashlight companies to be more involved in the community in the future.