Terms of sale

What you are buying

The First Line Pilot is a fixed-price deployment: $1,500 flat, one production line, thirty days of recording, verified by replay at day thirty. It includes the use of a preconfigured Core appliance and up to three Capture gateways matched to the equipment on your line, together with mounting hardware, cabling, an install guide, and a prepaid return label.

The hardware is provided on loan for the pilot term and is not sold to you as part of the price. The price buys the deployment and the record it produces.

It does not include on-site installation, integration of a second line or site, or custom reporting. Those are quoted separately.

We do not promise a particular result. The pilot is an experiment run on your equipment, and a pilot that records your line and produces an answer you did not want has performed exactly as sold. Nothing here is a guarantee that the platform will suit your operation, integrate with any given machine, or produce any specific finding.

The pilot is available to facilities in the United States and Canada.

Ordering and qualification

The pilot is requested, not bought on the spot: you submit your contact details and the line you have in mind, and no payment is taken and no card details are collected at that point. We review the request and either raise an invoice for the $1,500 — payable by ACH, wire, or against a purchase order on the terms stated on it — or tell you the line is not one we can start on. No assessment, call, or approval step is required of you, and submitting a request places you under no obligation.

The qualification criteria are published on the pilot page so you can assess your own line before asking. They are: a facility in the United States or Canada; one production line or asset class whose equipment can be physically reached; and power within reach of that equipment. We check the same three before invoicing.

You warrant that what you tell us when requesting the pilot, and in confirming the line afterwards, is accurate and complete — the line, the equipment on it, its condition, its interfaces, and your connectivity. We build the kit from that description and we rely on it. If it turns out to be inaccurate or incomplete, the post-shipment refund below does not apply.

Before the kit is built we ask you to confirm what is on the line and where it is to be delivered. The kit is ordinarily dispatched within five business days of that confirmation and payment of the invoice, whichever is later. Where we do not hear from you we build to the description given when the pilot was requested, and the dispatch period runs from payment instead.

You also warrant that you have the authority to place the order, to permit the hardware on the site, and to allow the equipment on that line to be connected and recorded.

Cancelling, and the one refund after that

Before the kit ships, you may cancel for any reason and the full $1,500 is refunded. You do not have to give a reason, and there is no restocking or administrative deduction. This right is unconditional and it is the protection that stands in place of a pre-payment assessment.

After the kit ships, one refund trigger remains: if bring-up cannot produce events from the equipment you described when ordering, the full $1,500 is refunded and the kit returns on the prepaid label. This applies only where you described that equipment accurately and completely, the equipment is functional, powered, and exposes a documented interface, and you have met your obligations under these terms. It does not apply to equipment that is broken, undocumented, proprietary-locked, or different from what you told us.

A refund after shipment is conditional on the kit being returned complete and undamaged within fourteen days of the refund request. Refunds are made to the original payment method and are processed within ten business days of the condition being met.

Those are the only refunds. Beyond them the price is committed, and a change of plan, a change of personnel, a site closure, or a decision not to proceed is not a refund event. The record and the write-up are yours either way.

Installation and your obligations

Mounting the gateways is your responsibility, performed by a person you name, from the guide included in the box. Bring-up is a scheduled remote session.

Bring-up is scheduled within fourteen days of delivery. If it has not taken place by the fourteenth day, the thirty-day recording term starts on that day regardless — the kit is loaned from a shared pool and the term is a calendar commitment on both sides. Rescheduling inside that window is fine; tell us and we move it.

If your facility cannot accept shipped hardware or requires an escorted install, on-site installation is available as a separate $2,500 flat add-on covering one visit.

You are responsible for: safe and lawful access to the equipment; power within reach of it; a network the Core appliance can join where one exists; all permits, licences, union or works-council clearances, landlord consents, and internal approvals; the safety of your personnel and premises during mounting; and compliance with every law and standard that applies to your operation. Work at height, lockout/tagout, electrical isolation, and machine safety remain yours throughout.

You will maintain commercial general liability insurance appropriate to your operation for the duration of the pilot, and will provide evidence of it on request.

You will not modify, open, reconfigure, relocate, reverse engineer, or connect the hardware to anything outside the scope agreed at bring-up.

The loaned hardware

Title to the Core appliance, the Capture gateways, and everything else in the box remains with The Mad Botter at all times. It is loaned, never sold, and it is not offered for sale at any price.

Risk of loss passes to you on delivery and remains with you until the kit is received back by us. You will keep it insured, secure, and in the condition it arrived in, and you will not permit any lien, charge, or third-party claim to attach to it.

The kit is returned on the prepaid label within fourteen days of the end of the pilot term, or within fourteen days of any earlier termination or refund. If it is not returned within that period, or is returned incomplete or damaged beyond normal operating wear, you will pay the full replacement cost of the missing or damaged items as invoiced, plus any collection costs.

We may recover the hardware at any time on reasonable notice if you breach these terms, and you will grant access for that purpose.

After the thirty days

If you continue to a platform deployment within twelve months and sign a platform agreement, the $1,500 is credited against your first platform invoice. The credit is not cash, is not transferable, and expires with that period.

Production hardware is bought by you, from your own supplier, to a specification we provide — we do not resell equipment.

The recorded operational data and the architecture write-up are yours to keep.

The architecture write-up delivered at day thirty sets out an indicative hardware specification, a suggested deployment sequence, and an estimate of what the deployment it describes would cost. It is an estimate prepared on the information available at the time, not a quotation, not an offer, and not a commitment to perform at any stated price. It is delivered whether or not you continue, and it carries no separate charge.

Intellectual property

The platform and everything underneath it are and remain ours: the Capture engine and its device abstractions, the Core data layer and its schema tooling, the Pipelines runtime, and all software, firmware, and documentation delivered or used in the pilot. You are granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use it internally for the pilot term.

Configuration, connectors, and mappings written to fit your equipment are part of the platform and stay ours. That is how the platform is adapted to a floor, not a separate work made to order. What you take away is the recorded data and the architecture write-up — those are yours to keep and to use however you like.

You will not copy, modify, distribute, sublicense, sell, reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive the source or structure of any part of the platform; use it to build or assist a competing product; or publish any benchmark or performance evaluation of it without our prior written consent.

If you give us feedback or suggestions about the platform, we may use them freely and without owing you anything.

This section governs the pilot only. A platform deployment runs on a separate written agreement with its own ownership terms.

Data

Your operational record stays on your infrastructure. The platform writes locally, and nothing in these terms obliges you to transmit your operational data to us or authorises us to take it from your network.

In the course of delivering the pilot we necessarily see data: during bring-up, during support, and during the day-thirty replay and write-up. For any data we access in the course of delivery, and for all diagnostic, telemetry, device-compatibility, configuration, and performance information generated by the platform, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use, store, reproduce, analyse, and create derived works from it — including to operate, support, and improve the platform and to develop new products.

We will not publish your operational data in identifiable form, and anything we derive and reuse beyond your engagement will be aggregated or de-identified. The derived and aggregated material itself is ours.

You warrant that you have the rights to allow all of the above, and that no data you expose to us during the pilot is subject to a restriction you have not told us about in writing beforehand.

Confidentiality

By placing an order you agree to keep our confidential information confidential: the platform and how it works, its architecture and source, the deployment playbook, the install guide, our pricing other than the published figures, and any non-public technical information you learn through the pilot.

You will not disclose it outside your organisation, will limit it internally to those who need it for the pilot, and will protect it at least as carefully as your own. The obligation runs for three years from the end of the pilot. It does not cover information that is public through no act of yours, that you already lawfully held, or that you are compelled to disclose by law — in which case you will tell us first, so far as you lawfully can.

Your recorded data and the architecture write-up are yours and are not covered by this section.

This clause exists so a pilot can start without waiting on paperwork, not to stop you having an agreement of your own. If your organisation needs a mutual non-disclosure agreement, say so before ordering and we will sign one.

A breach of this section causes harm that money cannot adequately repair, and we may seek an injunction.

Payment, taxes, and late payment

The pilot is invoiced. The invoice is payable on the terms stated on it, and the kit is built and dispatched once it is paid. Invoices are issued and settled through Stripe, which handles the payment instrument directly — we do not receive or store your card or bank details.

Prices are stated in US dollars and exclusive of any sales, use, VAT, or similar taxes, duties, or withholdings. Where such amounts apply they are your responsibility, and any payment to us is made without deduction or set-off.

Overdue invoices carry interest at 1.5% per month or the maximum permitted by Florida law, whichever is lower, from the due date until paid. You will reimburse the costs of collection, including reasonable legal fees.

A chargeback or payment reversal raised without first requesting a refund under these terms is a breach of them, and you will reimburse the associated fees and costs.

Warranties and disclaimers

The platform, the hardware, the write-up, and everything else provided in the pilot are supplied AS IS and AS AVAILABLE.

To the fullest extent permitted by law we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy, and any warranty arising from course of dealing or usage of trade. We do not warrant that the platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, compatible with any particular equipment, or that it will capture any particular signal, event, or volume.

We are designed to support your compliance posture; we do not certify compliance. The platform is engineered for ITAR, EAR, CMMC, and NIST environments, and determining whether your obligations are met remains yours. No statement made by us, in the write-up or otherwise, is a certification, attestation, audit opinion, or professional advice.

The pilot is not a safety system. It records; it does not control, protect, or intervene. Do not rely on it for any safety, life-safety, emergency, medical, environmental-protection, or regulatory-reporting function.

Limitation of liability

Our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the pilot, on any theory whatsoever, will not exceed the amount you actually paid us for it.

We will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost savings, lost or corrupted data, business interruption, production downtime, spoiled or scrapped product, regulatory penalties, or loss of goodwill — whether or not the possibility of such loss was known to us, and even if a limited remedy fails of its essential purpose.

These limits apply to us, our officers, employees, contractors, and suppliers, and they survive termination.

Any claim arising out of or relating to the pilot must be brought within one year of the event giving rise to it, or it is permanently barred.

Indemnification

You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless The Mad Botter, its officers, employees, and contractors from and against any claim, demand, proceeding, loss, damage, penalty, and cost — including reasonable legal fees — arising out of or relating to: your equipment, premises, personnel, and operations; the data you expose to us and your right to do so; your compliance obligations, including export control; your use of the platform, the write-up, or anything derived from the pilot; injury to persons or damage to property at your site; and your breach of these terms.

We will notify you of any claim and you will conduct the defence, save that we may participate with our own counsel at our expense and you will not settle anything that admits fault on our part or imposes any obligation on us without our written consent.

Compliance and export control

You are responsible for identifying, before the pilot begins, whether the line, the equipment, the facility, or the data is subject to ITAR, EAR, CUI handling requirements, CMMC obligations, classified-information rules, or any other control — and for telling us in writing.

You will not expose us to controlled technical data, controlled technology, or a controlled environment without that prior written notice and our written agreement to receive it. If you do, you bear the consequences and you indemnify us for them.

You warrant that you are not, and are not acting for, any party subject to US sanctions or debarment, and that the pilot will not be used in violation of any export, sanctions, or anti-corruption law.

Publicity

We may describe the work anonymously — the industry, the class of equipment, the technical problem and what was done about it — without naming you and without needing your approval, in case studies, talks, podcasts, and marketing material.

We will not use your name, logo, or any identifying detail without your prior written consent.

Suspension, termination, and events outside our control

We may suspend or terminate the pilot immediately if you breach these terms, if payment is not made, if the site or the equipment presents a safety or legal risk, or if continuing would expose us to a control or obligation you did not disclose. On termination the hardware is returned under the hardware section and no refund is due beyond those already described.

Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events outside its reasonable control, including natural disaster, fire, flood, war, civil unrest, epidemic, labour dispute, carrier failure, supply shortage, utility or network outage, cyber attack, or act of government. Where such an event delays us, the dates in these terms move by the length of the delay.

Governing law and venue

These terms and any dispute arising out of or relating to them or the pilot are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

Any such dispute is brought exclusively in the state or federal courts sitting in Hillsborough County, Florida, and both parties consent to the personal jurisdiction and venue of those courts and waive any objection based on inconvenient forum.

Both parties waive trial by jury.

Before either of us files anything, tell the other what is wrong and allow thirty days to put it right. Most of what goes wrong in a thirty-day pilot is fixable in a week.

Any claim arising out of or relating to the pilot must be brought within one year of the event giving rise to it, or it is permanently barred.

General

These terms, together with anything expressly incorporated into your order, are the entire agreement about the pilot and replace anything said or written beforehand. Any purchase order, vendor portal terms, supplier code, or standard conditions of yours have no effect, even if we sign or acknowledge them to get an invoice paid.

You may not assign or transfer these terms without our written consent. We may assign them freely, including on a sale of the business.

If a provision is held unenforceable it is limited to the minimum extent necessary, or severed, and the rest stands. A failure to enforce something is not a waiver of it.

Nothing here creates a partnership, joint venture, agency, or employment relationship, and there are no third-party beneficiaries.

The sections on intellectual property, data, confidentiality, payment, warranties, liability, indemnification, and governing law survive the end of the pilot.

Changes and contact

These terms may change for future purchases. The version in effect when you paid is the version that governs your pilot.

Questions about any of this: [email protected].