Kickstarter Release: New SALTGATOR Desktop Injection Molding Machine is Optimized for 3D Printed Molds

As the latest generations of industrial-grade advanced manufacturing equipment continue to grow in popularity, availability, and affordability, you might expect that the marketplace for desktop machinery would start to stagnate. However, as Carolyn Schwaar at All3DP details in a recent article about the desktop 3D printer market, the opposite appears to be the case: the vastly improving quality of desktop FDM printers, combined with the price-drop that’s occurred simultaneously alongside their accelerating technical performance, has enabled desktop 3D printer OEMs to overtake substantial market share from their industrial-level counterparts.

While this development might not be happening in the same way across all areas of the advanced manufacturing world, there nonetheless still seem to be exciting things happening in the market for lower-cost, hobbyist-level equipment in industries like injection molding. For instance, a company called SALTGATOR, based in Hong Kong and Austin, Texas, is launching on Kickstarter what it’s billing as the world’s first soft gel desktop injection molding machine. Priced at $399, you can also get the machine for half the price with a $1 early access pledge.

Soft gels in this context refer to plasticizers, which are additives used in polymer formulas to make the end material more flexible. Notably, the low-temperature melting point for the SALTGATOR — which is rather compact, with the company describing it as “smaller than a coffeemaker” — makes it ideal for use with 3D printed molds, suggesting that desktop 3D printing enthusiasts, as well as print farms, could be logical target markets for the low-cost machine.

According to the company, “a failed attempt to create homemade fishing lures” is the background behind the product’s development. Homemade fishing lures are apparently one of the key uses for desktop injection molding machines, though the typical price point for these machines greatly exceeds what SALTGATOR is charging. Among other possible uses for the SALTGATOR, it may help at least a few people get some custom fishing lure businesses off the ground. A business could let customers create their own lure molds designed for 3D printing, then injection mold the custom designs with the SALTGATOR.

In a press release about the launch of the SALTGATOR desktop injection molding machines for soft gel materials, the company’s co-founder, Alex Kwow, said, “We named it SALTGATOR after seeing a gator effortlessly cutting through both salt and freshwater. It’s a symbol of power, adaptability, and precision — all traits we wanted our tool to embody.”

As the company points out too, the SALTGATOR has many potential uses other than fishing lures. The machine could easily find a home at companies doing prototyping for products like wearables and soft robotics; two markets where rapid prototyping will likely be a top priority, well into the future.

You could also imagine advanced manufacturing educational programs creating curricula around the use of integrated desktop ecosystems where injection molding, 3D printing, and CNC machines all play a role. I recently posted about a robotics workshop that the European Space Agency (ESA) held, where students learned how to assemble 3D printed components into Mars rover prototypes. A combination of desktop 3D printers and the SALTGATOR might make perfect sense in such a setting.

The most interesting use cases, though, could just as conceivably be for applications that no one is even thinking about yet, and that no one might ever think of, were the price point for this sort of equipment not dropping so drastically. That’s what’s so intriguing about the launch of products like the SALTGATOR: they continuously unlock the potential for more and more new life to be breathed into the landscape of product design.

Images courtesy of SALTGATOR