Kickstarer for dental milling machine

[Danutule]

Hi,

We are a small company that produces equipment for dental labs, and we were wondering if there are people interested in a Kickstarer project for a dental milling machine.
We have plenty of experience in manufacturing equipment for dental labs as we are manufacturing induction casting machines for some years now, and we created first non commercial dental milling machine back in 2014.
Now we are working on a commercial version of the milling machine that will be available somewhere around in mid to late November.
The machine is 4 axis, dry, 12 position tool magazine (4 positions for 2mm burs, 4 positions for 1mm burs, 2 positions for 0.5mm burs, 1 position for special burr..., and another position for the calibration tool),it uses a 200W spindle, capable of milling Zirconia, PMMA, PEEK, Wax, and other soft materials. Capable of milling in 90 degrees position. It uses closed loop motors. Have a system to manage the life of the milling burs using the total distance milled (meters). And it comes with MillBox included.
The price will be 13000 euro if there are at least 10 backers, or higher if less backers... the price does not include the shipping cost, VAT, custom taxes or other taxes.
If there is interest in this project i can offer more details, and post periodically updates (every couple of days) about the evolution.
As a side note, we also have a dental lab so we are more than familiar with the needs of the dental technicians and doctors...

Best regards

 

[zero_zero]

The "dental" market is quite narrow and their focus tends to orbit around well recognized brands. I'd say develop a general purpose mill with a dental add-on, so jewelers and DIYers can use it as well. These guys did well on Kickstarter, their campaign could give you an idea or two...

 

[JKraver]

Hi,

We are a small company that produces equipment for dental labs, and we were wondering if there are people interested in a Kickstarer project for a dental milling machine.
We have plenty of experience in manufacturing equipment for dental labs as we are manufacturing induction casting machines for some years now, and we created first non commercial dental milling machine back in 2014.
Now we are working on a commercial version of the milling machine that will be available somewhere around in mid to late November.
The machine is 4 axis, dry, 12 position tool magazine (4 positions for 2mm burs, 4 positions for 1mm burs, 2 positions for 0.5mm burs, 1 position for special burr..., and another position for the calibration tool),it uses a 200W spindle, capable of milling Zirconia, PMMA, PEEK, Wax, and other soft materials. Capable of milling in 90 degrees position. It uses closed loop motors. Have a system to manage the life of the milling burs using the total distance milled (meters). And it comes with MillBox included.
The price will be 13000 euro if there are at least 10 backers, or higher if less backers... the price does not include the shipping cost, VAT, custom taxes or other taxes.
If there is interest in this project i can offer more details, and post periodically updates (every couple of days) about the evolution.
As a side note, we also have a dental lab so we are more than familiar with the needs of the dental technicians and doctors...

Best regards

Wish you the best, but this is a tough market.

 

[LuthorCorp]

Seconded, tough market, going to need some good QOL features to stand out, especially with a new brand and first milling machine.

 

[tuyere]

Kickstarters don't really make sense for big-ticket dental equipment, imo- you need a large pool of potential 'investors' to have much chance of making your target, and you also need people willing to take a risk on an unproven design and an unproven company. The pool of dental-related potential buyers is miniscule compared to, say, people in the market for a general-purpose desktop hobby CNC platform, like Luthor linked above. More to the point, the dental buyers are all operating businesses, and they're very unlikely to take that investment gamble on something that doesn't exist yet, they'll just buy a Roland or whatever other proven design that will do what they want, and for which they can get support from a known company.

 

[CoolHandLuke]

you will need to become familiar with standardized systems in order to produce something that can be sold internationally and be approved by governmental agencies that protect things like the power use, the electrical safety, the international standards organization's classification of devices and codes for acceptable classifications.

you don't want some board to come banging down your door because a lab who bought your product caught fire and has cause to sue.

you also don't want to become partners with a cam software like millbox and discover that they cannot create a postprocessor because your axis configurations has mislabelled A and B or has turned X and Y around, and now you need to rewire the mill.

and to label the price before theres a testable unit? putting the cart before the horse.

forget about your theoretical pricepoint, focus your effort on a working product. when the standards boards come knocking and everything qualifies, then slap your sticker on it.

 

[CoolHandLuke]

also if you are going to create the machine, and you know what that involves, why WHY WHY would you leave the strategy for milling to a 3rd party?

the strategy is ultimately what produces the result and if it poorly optimizes use of a tool then your mill will always use that tool quicker than it should, leave units rough, or straight up keep breaking tools until the strategy is fixed.

don't partner with millbox if they keep the strategy development private.

 

[cosmetic1]

It would be attractive if everything was included for $13000. But now the 5th axis machine is the default. There is no point in building a 4th axis machine now. The most important thing is CAM. Efficiency varies greatly depending on the quality of the CAM. It would take a lot of development time to perfect that machine and make it the fastest.

 

[zero_zero]

you also don't want to become partners with a cam software like millbox and discover that they cannot create a postprocessor because your axis configurations has mislabelled A and B or has turned X and Y around, and now you need to rewire the mill.

As mediocre as they are, but still hold a nice share among dental CAM software out there. Post definitions are easy to rewrite, there's no need to rewire anything these days, BTW...

 

[MikeW]

also if you are going to create the machine, and you know what that involves, why WHY WHY would you leave the strategy for milling to a 3rd party?

the strategy is ultimately what produces the result and if it poorly optimizes use of a tool then your mill will always use that tool quicker than it should, leave units rough, or straight up keep breaking tools until the strategy is fixed.

don't partner with millbox if they keep the strategy development private.

Strategy development is centralized - not private. It's quite out in the open for any user with the proper module (strategy editor) to see.
Due to the nature / structure of the strategy - it's not practical for end-users to be able to add new options there and it's counter to the whole reason that Strategy X was created - It is meant to be a bridge between technicians and CNC techs.

Even though, it's not being withheld from anyone and users have the choice to choose from any one of the 4000+ combinations of options. If you don't have options available for what you need, you can simply request it from your provider. Not all providers are capable of fielding the request, let alone performing strategy changes so indeed - choose your support wisely.