[techhelpbb]

I have several concerns about the donation process at work here:

1. Did they fully anticipate the speed with which the requests for donations could accumulate? It's a donation after all and if MakerBot is taking a loss for this perhaps there's a finite limit before which it impacts their operation's costs. Perhaps if the donation requests were metered over a longer time frame it would be less of an issue.

2. If this is completely outside of MakerBot and MakerBot makes full cost on each and every printer. As I've stated previously I am not sure that was as wise a use of the donor's money as it could have been. There are other printers that are less expensive that may of sufficed for a wider range of materials. If the printers are half the cost (for example) the donation could go twice as far.

In any event: I would like to thank the parties involved with that website for their generosity. A donation is a donation even if there are limits. I am sure that whatever prompted the sudden blockage was as difficult for the donors as it was for the reciepients who may now go without.

In the event that further opportunities like this are limited I'd like to point out that there are respectable printers down into the $500 range. They might not be MakerBots but they print and like the MakerBot you may encounter some typical issues for this technology. So the question is not really do you have nearly $4,000. With RepRap style printers it might be as simple as being patient enough to accumulate the parts a bit at a time for less than $800 in the end.