I contacted Prusa Support, explained the situation.
My sense of it is that for them, contributing to the costs of the printer was something they were not set up to handle and consequently they prefered it not to happen, and so they found reasons to justify their position.
So it bounced off, and that seems to be the end of it.
So, two things have happened.
First, the bit of work I may get may well happen but as often is the way it takes longer than expected, and so I can't just keep waiting for that. If I get to do it before I start getting completely busy with my work for Ukrainian Armed Forces, I will refund everyone who has donated as much as I can (which should be fully).
Second, and this is the biggie, Tomas, the guy running the show, went to an event where Josef Prusa attended, collared him, showed him the drone and what was being done, and Josef donated a printer, free and gratis.
Tomas did a great job, and Josef is a dude, and so there is now a printer.
So, the fund-raiser has been invaliated. We can't just carry on and buy a printer - asking for pledges when you have no printer and need a printer is one thing, it's an immediate and critical need, but asking for pledges when you have one printer and would buy a second, that's totally different. It's not an immediate and pressing need. I cannot assume people who pledged for the former would pledge for the latter.
Now, I have to say that much as the problem is solved it seems a bit unfair on Josef. What's happened is he has alone taken on the cost of obtaining a printer. It shouldn't be just on him. I'm sure he's well-off, he's been successful, but sure there are plenty of extremely worthy projects which could do with a free printer. It seems improper that it's all on on him - if we think this is a goal worth supporting, we should still help it happen.
What seems proper is that we fund-raise the amount that it cost him to provide a printer for free, and get that money to Prusa. Josef's contribution then is providing the printer at cost, which seems reasonable - not excessive, not all on him.
That means I need to find out how much that is, and I need to re-start the fund-raiser so people can choose to pledge, or not, based on the new situation.
So I'm going to find out that price, and write about this in the Slacks so people know, and find out what everyone thinks about it.
I'm a Brit, military volunteer, living in Kyiv.
I'm fund-raising on behalf of a startup who have done quite a bit of work on a normal electric interceptor drone, but which they've also fitted with a rocket motor.
When you make a pledge, you get the pledge ID and also a secret associated with that pledge, a random number. You need both to delete the pledge.
| Amount | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date (UTC) | Pledge ID | Pledged | Reduced | Currency |
| 2026-07-13 | 13 | 1.00 | 0.95 | CAD |
| 2026-07-13 | 12 | 1.00 | 0.95 | CAD |
| 2026-06-17 | 11 | 100.00 | 95.17 | EUR |
| 2026-06-17 | 10 | 100.00 | 95.17 | EUR |
| 2026-06-16 | 8 | 100.00 | 95.17 | EUR |
| 2026-06-16 | 7 | 500.00 | 475.87 | USD |
| 2026-06-15 | 6 | 100.00 | 95.17 | GBP |
| 2026-06-11 | 4 | 100.00 | 95.17 | GBP |
| 2026-06-11 | 3 | 100.00 | 95.17 | EUR |
| 2026-06-10 | 2 | 100.00 | 95.17 | EUR |
| 2026-06-10 | 1 | 123.00 | 117.06 | EUR |
| Total CAD | 2.00 |
|---|---|
| Total CZK | 0.0 |
| Total DKK | 0.0 |
| Total EUR | 623.00 |
| Total GBP | 200.00 |
| Total HUF | 0.0 |
| Total PLN | 0.0 |
| Total RON | 0.0 |
| Total SEK | 0.0 |
| Total UAH | 0.0 |
| Total USD | 500.00 |
| Total in CZK* | 31191.35 |
| Goal in CZK | 29685.96 |
| Percentage of Goal | 105.07% |
| Pledge Reduction | 4.83% |
* Exchange rates as of 2026-06-08, from xe.com.
The reason for developing this drone is to keep up with developments of the Russian Shahed drone (which the Russians call "Geran").
Shahed is a one-way attack drone, originally from Iran. They're cheap, made in mass, Russia sends over like 500 at a time. I hear them every couple of nights, get to see them being shot down, or occasionally hitting buildings (I'm on 26th floor, I overlook about 150km2 of buildings).
The current by far most common version has a small propeller engine and does about 180 kmph with a 50kg warhead, and those are pretty well dealt with - more than 90% interception rates - but there are new versions being seen in small but growing numbers which have a jet engine and do something like 600 kmph with a 90kg warhead.
Existing interceptor drones do about 200, 250 kmph. That's fine for Shahed at 180 kmph, but not great for Shahed at 600 kmph.
Wikipedia page here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahed_drones.
So the idea is to take a normal interceptor drone with its electric motors and fit it with a small rocket motor which the pilot can trigger on demand, which takes the drone to about 600 kmph.
Small rockets in a drone seem to be the way to go - electric with props can't go that fast (drag from propellers), jets are way too big and expensive, full-on missiles are too expensive.
The startup is a few guys, mainly self-funded. They all have normal jobs to pay the bills, but a couple of donations/investments with an informal expectation of the possibility of a return have happened in the past.
They're currently looking for proper funding, so if you know someone who's interested, by all means let me know.