New products in the OpenFlexure Industries Store
OpenFlexure Industries is now selling both printed parts kits and fastener kits for the OpenFlexure BlockStage. Form more information on the OpenFlexure Blockstage.
New pricing in the OpenFlexure Store
This one is perhaps not quite such good news. As OpenFlexure Industries has grown we have realised that the cost of production is far more than the cost of parts, even for a kit! We knew this to be true for for an assembled product, but in our enthusiasm and naivety we overlooked many of the costs for the kits.
The Microscope 3D printed parts kit is now £85, and the Bag of Bits is £30.
For those who are interested in how we came to these prices you can see my spreadsheets:
In fact we are probably under pricing them still as we rely a lot on tools and premises from our homes, we have very very administration costs, and also our hourly rates don’t include holidays, pensions, etc etc that a company with full time staff would need to consider.
Our business was never set up to make money, it was to get OpenFlexures into more hands. Currently it has trespassed too much on our limited free time so we are moving towards a more sustainable business model, it will take us another year or two to see how successful we have been.
New suppliers
Lab maker in Germany are now supplying the OpenFlexure microscope bag of bits (not the 3D printed parts key). They can sell these kits worldwide.
Their pricing is about 50% higher than ours, this relates to the items mentioned above for our pricing. They do have premises to pay for and they have full time staff costs they need to cover!
—
We are really excited to see how things have progressed over the last couple of years. Within the next year or so we hope to have companies selling assembled version 7 microscopes. 