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About a week ago, a team of engineers and
fishing enthusiasts debuted a new product on
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Kickstarter with modest expectations.
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It’s understandable.
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A little more than 40% of projects launched on
the crowdfunding platform reached their funding
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goals, and about 15% failed to raise a single
dollar.
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So when Saltgator launched the world’s first
desktop soft gel injection molding machine,
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also called the Salt Gator, it had a modest
goal of raising $15,000, you know.
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Get the company off the ground.
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Just a couple out there in the industry.
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Start a business, you know, just a little bit
of scratch,
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get going, you know, a couple of pennies in the
coin purse in the first seven days.
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The company raised more than $300,000, more than
2,000% of its initial
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goal, and it has about 37 days left to go.
The team developed Saltgator to bring
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industrial quality soft plastic molding to
desktops, workshops,
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and classrooms.
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The company says that until now soft plastic
fabrication has been limited to unsafe DIY
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setups or expensive industrial systems.
Saltgator aims to combine professional
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performance, compact design, and safe operation
all into one simple to use device,
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and it looks impressive.
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The Salt Gator heats, mixes, injects, and even
recycles soft plastics using an enclosed
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cool touch design.
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The entire process, from heating to de-molding,
takes less than 15 minutes with no exposed heat
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sources, fumes, or special ventilation required.
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The fumes are kind of a big one.
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The company says that its device has a sealed
heating system and advanced insulation to
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ensure user safety.
The idea began with a DIY fail.
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They wanted to make homemade fishing lures, and
they hashtag nailed it.
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One overheated microwave experiment and a
melted plastic disaster later.
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The team realized that there was no safe or
efficient solution for making soft plastic
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parts at home.
The small team of engineers from Texas and Hong
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Kong started building a prototype that would
become Saltgator.
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While it sounds like Hollywood schlock and I
actually Googled it to make sure it wasn’t some
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sort of direct to streaming disaster, Saltgator.
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The team named it Saltgator after seeing a
gator effortlessly cut through salt and fresh
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water.
Company co-founder Alex Kwok says it was a
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symbol of power, adaptability, and precision.
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Smaller than your coffee maker, it takes 10
minutes to heat the material,
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BASF-certified EU and US compliant plasticizers,
and 3 minutes to solidify in a 3D
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printed mold.
Users can even remelt and reuse leftover or
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damaged materials to prevent waste.
The company believes Saltgator could redefine
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accessibility in soft plastic molding, and
nearly 1,200 backers agree with them,
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or, they’re at least willing to find out.
Salt Gator will retail for $399 but as of press
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time, the company is still offering a host of
early adopter rates.
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One industry observer said, quote, neat tech,
worth a scratch at that price if you had a 3D
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printer and knew how to design the molds.
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Well, let’s just hope it doesn’t become the
next TiO 3D printer or Xanao drone.
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They didn’t go well, I didn’t, they didn’t go well.
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I’m David Manti.
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This is Manufacturing Now.
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Yeah, that’s it.