Monday, May 7, 2012

Manufacturing Show


Now that the CAD drawings are wrapping up it’s time to source a manufacturer for prototypes. There was a local manufacturing show taking place this past week so I though it’d be worth checking out.

The show mainly catered to the machining parts industry so I really didn’t find many prospects, except for one. I’m looking for someone that can offer a striped acrylic. I’d much prefer a way to infuse the colors of acrylic together, but the way this company applied colors to their sample, it didn’t look too bad.  However when they told me how much it would cost for a mold, I about fainted. $1500-$4000 (and this is just one component of the lighting fixture). Once the mold was created they said it would only cost around .75 per piece to make. But, on the down side again the mold is only good for so many runs.

Thomasnet has some other companies I’d like to check out first before I commit to anything. This will definitely be a pricey venture considering I’m sourcing for 5 different lighting fixtures. Hmm…maybe Kickstarter is in my near future.

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