First one sneaks through!

And the winner of “first one to get Paypal to put something in a cart properly” (from the new site) is….”Barry Shellgren”, of Somewhere in Warshington! (Thanks, Barry 😉 ) Well Barry, sure hope you ordered this one! That final verification of buttons to SKU and pricing hasn’t been done quite yet, so I’m not making any guarantees. Hopefully the probability of my mistake is less than that of the doctors I’ve been working with lately, but that’s a different story…. For me, the nice part is that packaging in this form, with the parts and folded instruction sheet inside …

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We knew this was coming: Internet Sales Tax

Interesting thought regarding Internet sales tax. I did some very light reading, and nearly all of the states have a minimum amount of business required in the state, typically on the order of $10K to $100K minimum receipts, per year, before you’re required to collect and forward that. Some also have a threshold number of transactions of some dollar amount of more. Which means that nearly all small internet-based businesses will be completely exempt except for a) where they actually live and work, and b) states with no minimum. Did I hear you say “status quo”? So for me and …

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First printed package inserts, ready to make “stuff”

Closer yet…Four stacks of 1pc each product-inserts for each of the SKUs. Four lines, 20 SKUs in total. Next up is packaging (at least) one of each of those and getting photos of those for the product pages. Then there’s a few more types of photos left in the process, but then it’s on to posting and creating PayPal buttons for my private site, and then on to eBay. Woohoo! Another short post ;-). Cheers, everyone! Rando  

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Good Clips , but Not NSF-Certified

A little truth-in-advertising is a must here. While I think yes, I’ve crushed the “NSF-style” wire-management, we have to accept that the nooks-and-crannies peculiar to 3D printing, and that they’re mere ABS (not Nylon or HDPE), means I’m almost certain they won’t ever be certified as Food Safe, or even for use in commercial kitchens. To avoid future lawsuits, we definitely want to make that clear, right up until the day they ARE certified for that. So: to be very clear: “4CELNK-YR parts are not NSF-certified for use in commercial kitchens.” Hey, I don’t wanna make anyone sick, just wanna …

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Getting Plated on a Monday

Today we reached a new height of “platedness” 😉. It’s always a big gamble to start that many parts at once: a failure in any one during the run will often doom the entire run and all the plastic that was used up to that point 🙁. So, this plate with 32 parts was a bit worrying, but it’s almost done, and flawless is the conclusion. Red ABS seems to be less stringy than white, but has a very high “stickiness”. It does exceptionally well on the first layer, and so far all the others after it. Wish I could …

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Now that’s better! Packaging is solved.

I think I like this packaging style a LOT more. Only one piece of 28# copy paper (no cardboard, no plastic blister-pack) that holds the retail labeling and the instructions, and a shrink-wrap bag holding it all flat and together. Niiiice! Let’s see….$11.99 for 200 bags, or $0.06 each, and a print costs about $0.06…so instead of way over $1 each, it’s more like a dime. Yeah, that works for me . And, they’re actually smaller, so will still fit in the flat-rate mailer envelope/boxes with no problem. Cheers, Rando    

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More Packaging Progress…but still not there.

After a quick trip to Staples for some prints on card stock for the sleeve, and turning my old Weller soldering iron into a heat-shrink bag sealer, the four made it through. Yes, the first was packaged four times total and I think I left an extra piece of cardboard/plastic in that one, but hey…first article! Yes indeed! Packaging is a tentative “go”. These will be shipped, 4 in a single flat-rate mailer envelope, to the first customer. This is actually his second shipment, as I first sent him some prototypes to try out. They almost worked, and these will …

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