Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Axiom Open Source Camera Handily Tops 100,000 Euro Fundraising Goal

Posted by timothy on from the magic-lantern-on-board-now-too dept.

The Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for an open-hardware cinema camera has closed far in the black, though the project continues to accept contributions. The Axiom's designers raised enough (€174,520, topping their €100,000 goal) to fund development of their stretch goals (remote control, active lens mount, active battery mount), and then some. If it actually gets built and catches on, it will be interesting to see what custom modules users come up with.

9 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. It will never get built ... by janoc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem is that this device will never get built. 100k is a ridiculously low budget for the production of a device of this complexity. Just to have an idea of what is involved for a much simpler device with the same budget (a silly 3D printer): https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... Basically those guys have also asked for 100k, got them, spent a year on it - and went bust. At least they had the balls to admit it and are going to refund the backers. Going to an assembly house with less than a million in budget? Forget it, they won't even speak to you.

    That leaves assembling these cameras in a garage, by hand. Which means soldering those nasty BGA by hand - good bye any reasonable yield, not to mention that those chips aren't exactly cheap.

    Which leads to the second point - I have serious doubts about their BOM costs. If they are planning to sell the camera for $500, with the FPGA/SoC costing about $100 alone, that can't work out. The 4k camera sensor is likely in the similar range (probably more - 300fps 4k sensor? Those things cost hundreds of dollars just the bare sensor ...). Which leaves about $200-300 for everything else on the camera *INCLUDING THE MARGIN* to pay all their expenses/salaries (and they have a LOT of people on the team!). Then there are fairly expensive licensing costs for anything HDMI related, USB related (USB vid/pid costs alone around $5k!), EMC compliance testing and certification (obligatory if they want to sell it in EU/US, it is ~$10k/iteration depending on type of the device), case molds are few thousands each iteration ...

    In short, unless they have an order of magnitude larger external funding as well this isn't happening. Period. They may have a prototype which perhaps works (who knows, the videos could be fake, all pictures are labeled "concept drawings/renderings", irrelevant testimonials about open source, etc.), but they have no idea how much the manufacturing is going to cost. And I doubt that this is going to be a charitable undertaking with the team paying for this out of their own pocket.

    1. Re: It will never get built ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      They aren't selling it for $500 - $2,300 is due once its finished depending on model. Actual release price will be higher. $500 is reservation of one for backers.

    2. Re:It will never get built ... by jtara · · Score: 2

      | I can't really see soldering their stuff in uncontrolled atmosphere either, you need clean room conditions

      Huh?

      When I worked at Widcomm, we did a lot of prototype assembly with these kinds of parts. We hired a part time worker who came in after her day job soldering this stuff all day. The little workstation in the corner of our lab worked just fine. You need to get proper equipment and somebody who knows how to use it.

      But, yea, the budget is ridiculously inadequate.

    3. Re: It will never get built ... by Optic7 · · Score: 2

      You're being a bit overly negative. This camera is nowhere near a RED competitor. This camera is going to be closer to a Blackmagic Production Camera competitor (which currently retails for $3k), at least in terms of hardware. In fact, their costs will likely be even lower than Blackmagic's, because they are concentrating on core features and openness, and will not include things like a video display, internal recording, etc.

    4. Re:It will never get built ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >Going to an assembly house with less than a million in budget? Forget it, they won't even speak to you.
      >
      >That leaves assembling these cameras in a garage, by hand. Which means soldering those nasty BGA by hand - good bye any reasonable yield, not to mention that those chips aren't exactly cheap.

      That's flat our ridiculous.

      Maybe you don't work in Silicon Valley but even you don't, you should know that's ridiculous.

      Small companies routinely run 10, 20, 30 boards at assembly houses. It would be impossible for small companies to exist if it were not the case. There's a whole industry set up to serve these needs.

      Engineering groups in major corporations use these assembly houses.

      Don't believe me? Ask the google gods,

      https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=pcb%20assembly%20service

    5. Re: It will never get built ... by Wescotte · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think you are confused about what they are actually producing... The beta camera was never meant to be a fully functional cinema camera and should be treated more as a developers kit than a retail product.

      Apertus has already completed the first stage of development by building a prototype (see Axiom Alpha) capable of producing images.. The purpose of the crowd funding was to raise capital so the core team could take their current prototype and create a developers kit to expand their community of developers. The 350 euro donation let's Apertus know that not only do you want to support this project but also want to actively participate in future development by purchasing a developers kit for an additional 1900-2300 euro. Apertus is saying thank you by assembling these kits for only the cost of parts which I assume is why it seems unreasonable to produce a camera of these specs for so cheap.

      I seriously doubt many will purchase the beta model at retail when it's completed because it's not really intended to be a product. Sure, you could use it to film a movie but there are better and cheaper solutions out there. I think your comments are more geared towards the Axiom Gamma stage which is what the crowd funding/beta is the first step in.

    6. Re:It will never get built ... by Wescotte · · Score: 2

      Digital Bolex and Blackmagic Design built a fully functional retail product where Apertus beta camera is closer to a developers kit. While it could be used to make films there are better, cheaper, and easier to use alternatives out there. The crowd funding was more about expanding their community of developers than building a retail product.

      The Axiom Gamma (next stage of development) is intended to be that type of device.

    7. Re: It will never get built ... by exomondo · · Score: 2

      Sorry, even $2300 isn't enough for a device of this complexity.

      But when you can raise €100,000 with another €460,000 when you ship you can get a business loan to cover the ongoing costs. Not to mention it is already at Alpha stage and this is only to get it to Beta and from there commercial production.

      And the team lacking any engineers or anyone with a verifiable experience in building projects of similar size?

      Well the Alpha shows they have the ability to produce the product.

  2. It will never get built ... by janoc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Oh and check out their team - "new media artistst", "filmmaker", "3D artist", "software developer" ... I don't see any electrical engineers, FPGA/signal processing experts, mechanical engineers ... Who is actually going to BUILD this camera?

    This looks very much like CLANG (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang) 2.0 ...