@Jonathan_Hurst Sounds like excellent design thinking. I hope the economics work out for you and your design is successful. As noted it is a specialty product in a specialized industry, but it is probably the best item for the purpose.
@dstevens_lv thanks for the +1 and the comments.
Sapphire and cubic zirconia tips are cheaper for my waterjet. I think it’s a good idea but any good idea at the wrong price is a non-starter.
How would people answer this question: “how much would you pay for this?”
@Brook_Drumm I’d pay $50-75. Simply because it doesn’t exist anywhere else yet. Especially if I were doing abrasives.
Kinda like how I scoffed at Simplify3D. You mean $150 for a fucking SLICER?! You’re joking! Pffft, now I have it…and I wouldn’t give it up.
I have seen a number of people propose sapphire gem nozzles for 3DP before, but this is the first real implementation that I’ve seen that solves the sealing & pressure-ejection problems in a reasonable form factor. Excellent work.
On the economics… if you’re churning through multiple regular nozzles per kilo printing CFR/GFR filament, $75-100 for this is a very reasonable cost. But you really need to compare the economics to the existing hardened/hardplated nozzles being sold by E3D, Micro Swiss, Performance3D, and so on.
Sidenote for the general community… fiber-reinforced filaments are utterly brilliant from a material properties standpoint. Aside from the usual stiffness benefits claimed, they don’t warp. Mixing a low thermal-expansion fiber into the bulk polymer drastically reduces the macro-scale thermal contraction of the composite, so warping stresses are greatly decreased versus the plain polymer. This makes some highly exotic filaments (CFR-nylon, GFR-PP, etc) exceptionally favorable for FDM. The two big issues are material cost and extruder wear… Filament costs can come down with scale, but only if the extruder erosion problem can be solved so reinforced filaments become more practical for widespread use. So high-durability nozzles are really a critical R&D direction for the 3DP community.
What’s the internal cross-section look like from the main melt zone down to the gem orifice? That’s a pretty critical design parameter both from the standpoint of extrusion backpressure and erosion patterns. For example, it would suck if the nozzle wore out behind the gem and broke the seal.
Edit: I see this: http://www.dura-gem.com/how-it-works
If you can use a steeper drill taper inside the brass section, it should help extrusion a lot. Makerbot, E3D, etc have all moved away from 120 degree drill tapers because steeper angles work better.
In a fan of how they went out and made it work. Kudos. I hope someday, we all have non-destructible tips. I hate how tips are currently considered consumables. I’d happily ship every bot with a 10 year tip. Cost on this would need to be $5 or $10 bucks to justify my current prices, but on high end machines, I’d be in at cost -whatever that is, frankly.
Brook
@Brook_Drumm Sapphire and CZ orifices are lower end parts more similar to standard FDM nozzles than higher end ruby or natural diamond orifices. Waterjet orifices are being made in the 100s of thousands. This guy might make 500 of these. That’s a big difference in scale. A quality orifice for a Mach 3 costs much more than what the import sapphire or even ruby orifice might be and pays for itself over the life of the consumable. Same thing here.
@Brook_Drumm thanks for the kudos. I agree with you I don’t like disposable components. Maybe some day your bot will have a Dura-Gem upgrade option upon check out? 
I would pay more for something that works vs less for something that doesn’t. No naming names.
Hi @Jonathan_Hurst This looks like a very exiting project and we’d love to try this out on some machines in our showrooms. We’d love to evaluate it on all the machines you list. Could you please send an email to our hardware manager @Anton_Mansson1 if you wish us to help you out with feedback
I dont now your calculations and how good you are in business development, but as i really like your product and also see many people doing wrong calculations I would give you this for your consideration.
75$ is too much for this product.
If I would be you I would think bigger at the first batch to get the prize down as much as possible.
500 a year is not the way to go.
Calculate how much you need to run in a batch to get the prize down as much as possible.
Calculate how much money you would need to pay the batch and multiply with 2. Why because you realy want to secure the next batch.
The retail price should be like double what you pay for it, a kickstarter could have like 10$ cheaper prize.
For example if your costs are 25$ each for a batch of 1500 pieces I would calculate a kickstarter prize of 50$ and retail 60$
The kickstarter target would be the price of the whole first batch in this case 37500 / 50 = 750 pieces you would need to sell via kickstarter to order the batchof 1500 so you will have a stock of 750 left
sell them retail:
750 * 60 = 45000
and even i you got sold out on kickstarter you would have secured 37500 for the next batch, this is important!!!
At this point anyway you have the money for the next batch of 1500 and just need to sell 625 more for another batch but would have left 875 for income + the next 1500 pieces to go ahead and ahead.
It takes maybe a bit longer to get an income, but it is a solid business model securing your business and paying of for your work and future products, research and developments.
there should be half a million 3D-printer user out there, so 3000 pieces arent too much to think of to get the business starting off. And 1500 pieces a year would also be a good starting point imo.
Good advice
@Markus_Osmers_mo22 @Brook_Drumm Thanks for the advice. I will recalculate a less conservative number for the kickstarter and plan for the second batch. Do you have any marketing suggestions? I am trying to get 200+ contacts before launching the kickstarter. How do you get on sites like @3ders.org ?
I could probably do a deal that takes your risk out but you would have to leave margin for me, a reseller. All depends on how it performs. Not assuming you are open to this but my CFO would suggest a limited time exclusive to trade for exposure. Our hotend parts are compatible with e3d- another manufacturer that you should contact. We’ve sold 70-80k hotends, so we might be compelling with a large user base. I love innovators and hope it goes well for you.
Definitely market as a high end product. I’d actually advocate a huge warrantee, maybe even free replacement for the for any failures the first year- price it accordingly. “The last tip you’ll ever buy” type of slogan. Or a challenge “you break it, we’ll buy it”. If you’ve got a strong stomach, “indestructible” or “lifetime warranty”… Now we’re talking distributor. Various sizes could still allow repeat customers. Maybe a cubic zirconia line.
What I’m struggling to understand is how this prevents or mitigates nozzle demise from jamming/partial clogs?
That seems to be the most common reason I swap nozzles
@Mike_Kelly_Mike_Make People who print carbon fiber or glass fiber composite filament can chew through two or more regular nozzles per kg of filament due to abrasion. It’s especially bad on very large prints because you can’t get through the entire print before the nozzle tip wears off and your layer height / extrusion width get messed up. This nozzle is intended to fix that problem.
Yeah, this nozzle can still jam, but most nozzle jams can be cleared with a good nylon cold-pull. Anything that can’t be fixed with a cold-pull should be fixable with a small drill bit or piano wire to clear the orifice. I personally wouldn’t go to that trouble with a $5-10 brass nozzle, but it’s worth the effort for a $75 nozzle.
That’s kinda what I figured. Seems like the cost vs benefit comparing a hardened steel nozzle to this is pretty minimal if it doesn’t provide much benefit over traditional single material designs.
@Markus_Osmers_mo22 How do you come to a $60 price point? Suggesting pricing without knowing the costs is a recipe for failure. While it’s important to market to a particular price point, it’s more important to sell it at a price that can sustain the company long term.
Braam had a post in another thread that included what many products in this market use to determine pricing. That’s 2.3 to 2.5 times the cost of the product. It’s easier to lower the price than raise it.
Volume and low prices aren’t everything. Many products have a premium price and offer a quality product. For example Ferrari sell only 7000 cars a year but has a market cap of more than $10bil.
@Mike_Kelly_Mike_Make The brass+gem design will have better heat transfer and thus higher top printing speed than a steel, nozzle, but from a longevity standpoint, you’re right. We really need to see some longevity testing to know for sure.
I’d say there are five main nozzle options to compare now:
- Traditional brass
- Non-hardened stainless steel
- Hard-plated brass (often sold as high-lubricity using epoxy or nickel coatings)
- Hardened stainless steel
- Gem insert brass