Hey Guys and Gals,
I have great news for Cali-Top owners. I am working on a Nylon replacement gear for your California top! We made attempts with our 3D printing and cast plastic but they failed. Nothing will be as strong as the original unless we make the replace the same way the original was made.
I need to do some market research, so I need your honest feedback! This is a personal investment so I need the honest truth from everyone. As of now, the gear will be made exactly like the original gear. It will be made in Nylon or a stronger plastic by using an injection mold. Some questions I have for everyone are:
1. Do you think there is a high enough demand for the gear? I know this is a common failure part for you guys, but I need to sell at least 250+ sets of gears in a 1 year period as a part of the contract (the minimum run is 500 parts). Is 250 sets unrealistic? I can wholesale to stores and people worldwide.
2. Are there variations to this motor/internal gears? I don’t want to get a set of gears that only fits 1 of 2 motor assemblies or something.
3. This is for the internal gears, but does the external metal gear that connects the motor assembly to the sunroof often go bad? Does the motor often go bad?
4. Does anyone know if the rubber part between the two gears has failed on them or can it be reused. I can produce that part, but it will add significant cost to the gear price. If no one has negative feedback, we can likley reuse it.
5. If the price was $50 shipped (In the USA) for 2 gears + new grease, would you buy them? I am working on lowering the price but I need to either sell a bunch of gears as a pre-sale or figure something else out. I know $50 sucks but the mold/labor/start up cost and shipping is extremely high.
Back story: The idea originally came about while we were prototyping our comapnies current product. I was selling the prototyping service on here (I am sure some of you saw this). The gears failed after the first use, but I had made copies of the gears just in case we revisited this topic. Fast forward a year, and our company is ready to do injection molding for our product. (A LED grow light -
www.stsln.com ). While talking to the injection mold company, we brought up the idea for the nylon gear. After a few negotiations, I got them to lower the minimum order amount.
Next Moves: The parts and molds are all being made locally (in the United States) and I am eating the cost if it fails. There is not a lot of profit in this for me unless I sell all of the gears from the first run. I need to sell over half of those gears to just pay off the start up cost, after that it is profit for me. I won’t hide anything since it’s not like I am paying 0.02 per gear. Each run requires me to have a minimum order of 500 gears (250 Sets) and i doubt there will be a second run, so the price I set is what helps me pay off the cost plus pay for my time. If a demand exist for over 250 sets of gears for the first run, the price will drop signifincaly! I can spread my cost over more sets of gears that way. I can do additional runs of 500 gears/250 sets in the future but the start up cost is high. If the first run went well, I'd likely wait 5+ years for the second run, if ever.
I am going to research this more, but if I get good feedback and maybe a few pre-sales, I will get the ball moving on this. I could take pre-orders just by people sending me money, but I think people may trust me more if I put together a crowd sourcing page (like kickstarter) It cost me about 10% but that’s fine with me if people are more conformable with it. Your money is also safe, as it only charges you if the final goal is reached and the project moves foward. No collecting money and refunding it later.
What are your thoughts!?!
Thanks guys!