Coming Soon: Full FarmBot Online Shop

Hi everyone!

We’ve been getting a pretty good number of inquiries in regards to our full online shop. When will it open? What will be for sale? How can I upgrade to the Farmduino? Etc. So here’s everything there is to know at this time:

First off, our number one priority is supporting existing customers with any replacement parts needed. If anything isn’t right with someone’s kit, let us know at support@farmbot.io and we’ll do our best to get something sent out to you quickly. Pinging me here in the forum isn’t the best method because there’s so much happening it is hard to keep track. And ultimately, address information and tracking numbers need to be exchanged in private, which is better done over email.

Our second priority is getting the v1.3 pre-orders out the door, which is unfortunately a little behind schedule. We’ll also need to update the documentation and public CAD models for that release, which will take significant resources.

Then comes our full online shop, where we plan to sell every component individually or in packs, as well as partial kits. This will be great for the DIY builders out there who may just want the motors/encoders and cables, but are purchasing extrusions locally, 3D printing their own plastic parts, etc. It will also be perfect for everyone who is now feeling adventurous enough to try extending your tracks, adding more toolbays/tools, etc. And of course, this will be where you can go to upgrade your bot with new electronics such as the Farmduino, or other hardware parts such as the vacuum pump mounting plate and cover that allows the pump to be positioned on the z-axis.

At this time, setting an opening date for the full shop is tough because it is very dependent on the v1.3 shipments, and when we have all the parts for the shop manufactured and stocked in our warehouse. If I had to choose a time though (because I know everyone wants to know) I would say end of September-ish.

In the meantime, we’ve listed recommended suppliers for most parts in the BOM, so you can order from there or an equivalent part from another supplier. Our friends over at OpenBuilds also just put up a bundle pack that includes all of the OpenBuilds parts used in v1.2. They also sell tons of other things that might be useful for hacking your bots.

When it comes to upgrading, backwards compatibility is important to us, but not everything will be backwards compatible, and some upgrades might require several new components. For example, the Farmduino is a physically larger board with some different connectors on it. It is not going to fit inside the v1.2 electronics box, and not all of the cables from v1.2 will have the right connectors to interface with it. We want to facilitate upgrades and make them as easy as possible, but we also don’t want to chain ourselves to the past when much better solutions exist going forward. It is a balance that we’ll do our best with. For Farmduino specifically, we’re looking into short adapter cables as an option, or one could get new cables too, depending on how much they wanted to upgrade.

When we do open up the full shop, we’ll be giving all 1st generation customers some store credit as a thank-you for being an early adopter with us and to encourage upgrading/hacking. The store credit will not expire, so don’t feel like you will have to use it right away, because inevitably there will be many more parts and tools and electronics, etc to get in the future too!

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Is that openbuilds kit a full farmbot for €424.64? That’s huge progress! Here’s an idea: Given the open source nature of the Farmbot, it might make sense for you to sell wefarmbot kits & openbuilds (and anyone else that comes along) kits from your website and essentially act like an affiliate marketer for them. That gives you a rev stream that’s based on economics without asking your customers to pay a big goodwill premium to you.

The OpenBuilds kit is for only the parts in the v1.2 device that they already stock. It doesn’t include any of the FarmBot tools, plates, plastic parts, cables, motors, stainless steel hardware, or electronics with the exception of the power supply. It is probably 25% of the parts at most.

I don’t think we’re asking anybody to pay us a big goodwill premium for our kits. If one is self-sourcing components, they could probably expect to pay a similar price but will need to put in a lot more work and be more technically savvy to pull it off. The value of a kit (from any source) is that everything is in one convenient box, probably higher quality than one could achieve through self-sourcing/manufacturing, and you know that everything is going to work together.

Because FarmBot.io is the main driver of the technology, purchasing from us is getting the next version of the hardware that no other company has yet. We also provide the most clear and comprehensive documentation which showcases the quality of our kit. Purchasing from a company that doesn’t substantially improve FarmBot technology but instead competes on price only is a fast way to kill innovation in the space. If everyone were to race to the bottom on price you could expect v1.3 to be the last version of FarmBot developed because nobody would have enough margin to invest in hardware R&D, great documentation, software development, or even hosted web app service. Innovation would happen, but at a very slow pace based mostly on volunteer contributions.

That’s not to say that the price of FarmBot will not come down over time. It certainly will. Though it only makes sense to bring it down as sales volume increases and as economies of scale kick in. Otherwise we’re just racing to the bottom and the technology will stagnate.

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Looking forward to this. I’ve been holding back on purchase because I have many parts here that can be repurposed. Really want injection molded and delrin machined parts rather than 3d printing it all

I can agree fully with your line of thinking!

Hi @roryaronson,
It’s nice to read that early backers of your kickstart project get ‘some store credit’ when buying upgrades (like a Farmduino, I guess). This remark may seem a bit Dutch to you, but it’s less funny to read that the new improved kits cost some 500 dollar less than the first kit.

Prices are always going to come down dude. That’s just the nature of markets. And it’s a really good thing. Because right now Farmbot is a rich man’s toy. Once this tech gets cheap it could really solve a lot of problems.

You miss the point @grizzles. There’s a new, kickstart product which has to prove itself and there’s an established or growing market where volume makes lower prizes possible. I think that early backers should be rewarded for their investments and risktaking. That’s why according to @roryaronson they get ‘some store credit’.

So your idea seems interesting but to actually do something useful like run a greenhouse would need to be designed to a larger scale more features etc no offence but at this point doesnt sem like many people working on it that have ever built anything besides a computer. So before I invest time let alone materials, how much of this system could be applied to a reworked design of say 2000sf. most of your stuff way way way over priced and not really what i need but say design the tracks gantry etc can the software and circuit boards be used or are they dialed in to this 3x5 system of yours. I would probably weld up a 45’ x 100’ gantry or maybe do away with the gantry and do an arm am i going to have to start over i am arnt i

@roryaronson

Dear Rory, We are really eager to get our hands on a Farmduino. Is there any news on the online shop? I believe it was planned to be LIVE by now. Is there an alternative way to order it? Thanks! Sietse

Hi all, we now have a small number of items in our online shop including some partial kits, the v1.3 Farmduino, and a few other goodies. Please check it out here: https://farmbot.io/shop.

Over the coming months we’ll be expanding our offering as we ramp up our warehouse’s capabilities.

And as promised, we’ll be sending out store credit coupons to our v1.2 backers later this month!

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Hey @roryaronson, December is over and January nears its end. When will you send out the store credit for the new shop for the early birds?
Thanks best Klim!

We sent out the coupon codes on December 27th in an email titled “Thank you for being a 1st generation FarmBot adopter! (coupon inside)”. Did you not receive it? I will personally forward it to you to make sure you get it.

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Hi Rory,

I did receive it now, but not in december. Thanks very much for taking care!

What do you currently assume when the Farmduino might be avail? What would be the biggest advantage
of upgrading to it? Not interested in easier clabin or such but in performance and functionalities…

Thanks very much again!

We have the current Farmduino version (included with v1.3 kits) available for sale now. The main improvements there though are with cabling/connectors, not with performance.

The next iteration of Farmduino does not yet have a release date, as discussed in this topic. The main advantages of the next version are the encoder co-processor (allowing for faster movements without missing any encoders pulses), the switch to 24V (quieter and more powerful operation), and the connectors/cabling (when compared to RAMPS).

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Thanks for the information.

Your shop discounts don’t work. The first pic show the discounted price the second pic the checkout price :wink:


After Checkout-Button:

Sorry for the confusion, though it does appear to be working just fine. Your first screenshot shows prices in EUR, while the second screenshot shows the price in USD. Because we are a US company, we process all transactions in USD. Meanwhile, the web shop allows for displaying prices in other currencies as a convenience feature. You can switch the currency displayed used the drop-down in the top right.

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Thanks for the explanation and cool for the fast fix

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