Comment by doodah | Hacker News Reader

Comment by doodah | Hacker News Reader

OP here. As someone who launched and fulfilled a small plastic gizmo on Kickstarter and then sold them on Amazon and at local Makerfaires, this equipment really spoke to me. Hence the submission. I 3D printed my product initially and found market fit at $5/piece, which didn't leave me with a lot of options to go into production and build a profitable business off it. 3D printing them was unsustainable. Which is why I'm not currently selling them.

In order to produce them cost effectively, I'd need molds that cost several times what this entire system cost. And after that I'd have to order thousands at a time to bring my cost down to say $1. I passed on that at the time and considered producing them myself but this machine didn't exist at the time. If it had, I might be making them now! There are other benchtop/low volume molding systems but nothing comes as close to automatic production as this one.

As for the company's site, this is fairly typical, but I'm sorry I didn't link to a better page. It certainly didn't get my blood boiling though. Them showing their price brings lots of good will. The CNC mill is also very interesting, with 4 motors driving the Z axis simultaneously.

Not sure who you were talking to or how big your widget is, but if it's a single piece that fits in a 15cm cube and doesn't use expensive tolerances or shapes you're probably looking at somewhere between $4-$15k for a Chinese injection mold. My company makes a few of these each month.

It would fit into that size cube and the part doesn't have crazy tolerances. The shape complicates the mold significantly. Even after redesigning for moldability, there would be pretty complicated parting lines and shut offs.

Your situation was pretty different... Your company buys them, I was buying as an individual. You likely have a proven source, I didn't. It just wasn't a risk I was willing to take at that point in my life.

Actually, we're a contract manufacturer based in Shenzhen and that's what we sell them for.

You probably made the right call, though, even if you had found a perfect supplier. Hardware projects funded by individuals almost always end in heartache if they try to go big.

Cool! I'll keep you and your company in mind in the future.

At the time, I think I made the right call. Now with this machine being available I'm reconsidering. The mold bases are pretty inexpensive too. I could make the same investment I was going to make several years ago, but have a machine if it doesn't work out rather than a hunk of precisely machined, rather useless, steel on the other side of the world.

Send an email to the address in your profile.

Not to mention that you could be looking at multiple iterations of the mold. If you're selling a low-volume product, 4 molds @ 15k each could be your entire expected lifetime revenue.

> In order to produce them cost effectively, I'd need molds that cost several times what this entire system cost.

Was that price from China or the U.S. (or somewhere else)?

> I passed on that at the time and considered producing them myself but this machine didn't exist at the time. If it had, I might be making them now!

Does this mean you stopped making your product after fulfilling the Kickstarter orders?

Chinese molds would have been 2x. Plus all that goes into working with China (as a very small fish at that) I was pretty concerned with paying $20k for what wouldn't amount to much more than a boat anchor.

After fulfilling around 700 units on Kickstarter, I sold another 300 at local Makerfaires and around 100 on Amazon (using Vendor Express.)

What was the part you designed? Do you have a link to the Kickstarter?

Sure. The product was a new type of tube squeezer called Squizmo (Squeezing Gizmo.) I know I'm biased, but I think it is the best tube squeezer ever made.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1954489654/squizmo-a-3d...

I have seen devices like this several times, and what I honestly don’t get is why not just press the tube against the edge of a counter and squeeze that way?

Not OP but I agree with you regarding tube squeezers. Just lean it up against the counter and pull down.

However, I guess this one has the unique feature of letting you reuse smaller tubes by cutting off the end and refilling from a larger tube.

I get the convenience of using a smaller tube, so refilling it would be nice, but doesn’t convenience go away when you have this big plastic squeezer thing at the end of it?

What's wrong with just folding the end of the tube and rolling it in (like a squeezing spiral)? I grew up in Easter Europe, we were always squeezing the toothpaste to the last drop.

It seems like I was spite down-voted for mentioning a hack that removes need to create an ever more plasticky device that is useless IMO and pollutes the environment and kills animals. Until we find a way to recycle plastic properly we should think twice about the lifetime of every plastic item we create or bring into this environment. Thanks for reading this.

I didn't sell many Squizmo's to people like you. There are a number of people who bought them without even being "pitched." I did witness several awkward disagreements between significant others who had different tube squeezing habits. Different strokes for different folks.

Using the edge of the counter is certainly one way to get the contents of the tube toward the opening. The Squizmo stays in position so the toothpaste stays in the same place. I think you'd be surpised at how flat the tube is after a Squizmo has been run up it!

As sibling comment says, I'm not sure I see the value over a counter edge (though clearly refilling tubes is one point)

But I want to say WOW to your kickstarter video!! I was not expecting that level of testing and engineering to go into this, kudos to you for taking it next level.

Do you think you recouped the costs of those testing jigs or was it all good fun?

I absolutely did not recoup the cost of the testing jigs. Though I put a joy stick on the one jig that squeezed one tube into the other. At the makerfaires, people had much more fun with it than I would have ever anticipated.

That's incredible, thank you for sharing and making a quality kickstarter and apparently a quality product!

Honestly if you showed me your product in CAD or injection molded and asked if it could be useful 3D printed I would have guessed "no". You've opened my vision up!

Small nitpick but if you want to save money, stop using so much toothpaste. All you need is a pea sized amount. You're putting 3 times what's needed in your videos.

That was more showmanship than a demonstration of my personal teeth cleaning routine!

Either way, however much toothpaste you use, this could potentially help you get more out of the tube. The payback would be longer, but that's not really why most people buy stuff like this.

When in doubt, don't sell to consumers, sell to businesses.

Find a business that buys product in tubes (protip: find industrial product in tubes and figure out who buys it!) and sell your product to them at a 10x markup as a cost-saving device.

Regarding "HeyLaughingBoy"'s comment - that market would be tubes of caulk and glue/epoxy.

While in the industrial space most use the common "gun" style applicator with the large tubes of product, and certain other manufacturers (3M in particular) sell custom applicators for industrial use for certain products (oftentimes at an insane markup) - there is the space for both the DIY'er and "handyman" (as well as commercial maintenance).

They will typically use regular squeeze tubes, especially on smaller projects where the larger gun-style tubes are too much or wasteful (because they may only use a small amount, and even when capped off, the tubes will dry out/cure relatively rapidly, especially at the nozzle end - making them useless and wasting product/money).

There also might be a market for automotive window glass installers for the sealants they use (and a/c repairmen?); actually tons of markets like this when you stop to think about it!

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