Ideas to sell to Companies or Do it Myself?


eejal

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May 4, 2005
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End of the Line
I have this idea which could lead to a small time sell-able products. Either I find a Plastic Maker Company to work with me on my ideas or should I just sell my ideas and get royalty perhaps? Anyone can advice me what I can do? :think:
 

incorporate a Pte Ltd company and seek a grant from Spring Singapore,, because Patenting could cost 30k easily :(
be careful of your manufacturers, if they take advantage and infringe your intellectual property rights without you having a patent, it would be very very troublesome . Good luck!
 

Hey guys,
thanks for your replies man..

Get them done with a 3D printer in small volume and sell yourself first.

Have you get the patent for it?

My colleague just told me about this new technology in 3D printing. Before I can even think of purchasing this, I will need to draft out the design first right? this might cost me thousands of dollars... Have you seen one in SG? Thanks so much Sion!


incorporate a Pte Ltd company and seek a grant from Spring Singapore,, because Patenting could cost 30k easily :(
be careful of your manufacturers, if they take advantage and infringe your intellectual property rights without you having a patent, it would be very very troublesome . Good luck!

WoW! I didn't know Patenting could cost me my arms, legs, chest etc! That's the reason I'm asking if I should just sell the idea to the company and get a royalty (if there is such a thing). Getting the right people is definitely a huge task, and troublesome too. I will take note of your advice Shizuma!
 

My colleague just told me about this new technology in 3D printing. Before I can even think of purchasing this, I will need to draft out the design first right? this might cost me thousands of dollars... Have you seen one in SG?

You have to do more research yourself as I don't know much about 3D printing. I think there are companies doing the 3D printing which you can try before you commit to buy the printer.
 

What about kickstarter, good place for new ideas
 

My colleague just told me about this new technology in 3D printing. Before I can even think of purchasing this, I will need to draft out the design first right? this might cost me thousands of dollars..

Usually the manufacturers of the printers have over 1000 designs and models stocked. You can buy them or if you know how to use a 3D software (3Ds max, maya, blender, houdini), you can create your own 3D model and print the model out.
 

TS, may I suggest that you do a patent search first to see if U are infringing on other patents. If your idea is novel or innovative, then there is reason to carry on. Filing a patent cost $$$ due to the level of protection U want. Filing one in SG does not mean it is protected in the rest of world. U file by regions like EU, or specific countries. Doing a product from concept to actual production and marketing is a complicated process. Getting grants involves having first a business plan and prototypes to prove and sell the idea. Royalties only comes in if U can convince a manufacturer that your product sells in a high volumes, eg 1k-10k -100k per year before they are willing to take the risks. 3D printing is a rapid plastic prototyping process meant to verify the design of your product and not meant to last as an actual sales product. There are places in SG that do the prototyping for U so U need not invest in a 3D printing machine. I take it that your idea is still a concept on paper that requires R&D effort to finalise. It costs $$$ to develop that. How much depends on the complexity and scale of your product.
 

You have to do more research yourself as I don't know much about 3D printing. I think there are companies doing the 3D printing which you can try before you commit to buy the printer.

yeah yeah...i will find out more about this 3D printing. Thanks again Sion!
 

Usually the manufacturers of the printers have over 1000 designs and models stocked. You can buy them or if you know how to use a 3D software (3Ds max, maya, blender, houdini), you can create your own 3D model and print the model out.


:thumbsup:
 

TS, may I suggest that you do a patent search first to see if U are infringing on other patents. If your idea is novel or innovative, then there is reason to carry on. Filing a patent cost $$$ due to the level of protection U want. Filing one in SG does not mean it is protected in the rest of world. U file by regions like EU, or specific countries. Doing a product from concept to actual production and marketing is a complicated process. Getting grants involves having first a business plan and prototypes to prove and sell the idea. Royalties only comes in if U can convince a manufacturer that your product sells in a high volumes, eg 1k-10k -100k per year before they are willing to take the risks. 3D printing is a rapid plastic prototyping process meant to verify the design of your product and not meant to last as an actual sales product. There are places in SG that do the prototyping for U so U need not invest in a 3D printing machine. I take it that your idea is still a concept on paper that requires R&D effort to finalise. It costs $$$ to develop that. How much depends on the complexity and scale of your product.

Thanks so much for the insight and advices Beserk. I've did a general search online and Amazon and I didn't come across anything like what I have in mind. Yeah, doing a prototype is a good option before i approach any manufacturers. In my mind there's already a few designs which might sell (I hoped).

Will SPRINGS Singapore be able to help?
 

Before you can do a 3D printing, you will need to produce a 3D drawing. If you do not have a 3D drawing, most of the local precision machining company will be able to produce one with a fee. TS how big is your design, please remember that the bigger the products, the more expensive the plastic injection mould would cost, and not the plastic injection company depending on their machine can run job with big size products.
 

talk to your Intellectual Property Lawyer is best. small outlay for initial consult, save big heartache in future.

also please view Spring Singapore website, I think they have a few schemes. good luck. hope you achieve financial freedom .
 

The first phase of any design is to sketch out the ideas first. Here is where good concepts are developed and bad ones discarded.
Then you cad it. Some common programs available are SolidWorks and Rhino. As you cad you think about how the object should be made.
After that you can go on to prototypes. Here you can do one of two things.

First is you get the drawings from your CAD and send it to a machine shop.
What are you making, the actual product, or the mould? Remember mould design can be quite complex and expensive. Plus the onus is on you to design the mould such that the melt flows through properly, and the mould must come apart such that the object can be removed. And also moulds don't last forever, so should it be made of steel or aluminium? And what about the finishing? It affects the surface of your moulded product. Moulds can typically cost upwards of 10k. Can you sell enough widgets to cover the cost of the mould?

Second, you can forgo the drawings and instead get your own CAM program plus a prototyping machine. Personally i use a desktop CNC machine, but i think increasingly people are shifting to 3D printing. Recently there is one 3D printer going for $1200USD. A good one typically costs $4k+USD. However my opinion is that 3D printing is not that standardized yet. For example there are those that use powder, and those that use layers of laminates. While they can all give good results, i'm concerned that after getting a printer the company that makes it goes bust, and the consumables (powder/laminate, bonders, etc) are no longer available. And i don't think the consumables are cheap/easy to obtain either.

CAM programs typically take in several kinds of file types. The one i commonly use, although not the best, is STL. I believe 3D software like Maya, 3dmax, etc. can read/write this file type. Here is where you can save some money by doing away with the CAM program and instead write your own programs to produce the NC codes. Going this route will save you a few hundred to 1k+USD.
 

Ideas are cheap, execution is the expensive part.
 

Spring Singapore have grants but subject to terms and conditions. Best to talk to them to get more info on this and also contacts to design firms, patent offices and contract manufactuers.

As some of the others have mentioned regarding CAM software, do know that it does need a certain skillset to know how to cad something out. U can certainly learn it but for complex products with mechanisms, experience and time is not something that U have.