We are Reducing the Cost of PCTG
- Tangled
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
The point of Tangled is to do two things. Reduce the Cost of 3D Printing Raw Materials and Ensure that 3D Printing has a reliable supply Chain.
We did it with PLA. Print Farms and Hobbyists alike used Tangled PLA which we were able to get to $10 per KG last year.
But PLA is easy and not very functional so we are going after PCTG.
PCTG is a material meant to be a replacement for PETG and ABS. It is very durable but does not absorb moisture like PETG creating cleaner prints that are far more robust (But use basically the same print settings). It warps less than ASA/ABS. It has far fewer emissions. And most importantly it is easier to process than even materials like PETG. So it can be made far cheaper in the long term
Currently most PCTG costs about $30/KG. We think we can get it to down to about $13/kg.
Here is how
Find out if anyone Cares at all
Do the simple things well
Take it down.
Find out if Anyone Cares
That is this right here. PCTG is currently for sale on TangledFilament.com for $22.66/KG. (Free shipping for members)
We are producing this with a partner. We have teamed up with another extrusion provider in the USA that is interested in reducing the cost so they will be doing this run. (Our extruders are busy)
With that many hands in the pie the price is a bit higher. But still a large reduction from the other options.
We need to sell 500KG of this (A Pallet). That keeps the raw material costs under control and are worth the effort of turning on the extruder.
Also, if we can't sell that much now then we won't be able to sell more later for cheaper.
This is a market test. So if you want PCTG to continue to go down in price, please buy some for less then you can ever find it.
THIS IS A PREORDER. Which means that shipping will be slower. We are not using your money to buy anything other than the raw material. It is not some kickstarter. We have made thousands of KG's of filament over the years. The expensive stuff is running. We just need to have enough orders to fill a hopper.
The preorder will run for 2 weeks or until we hit 500kg in orders. At which point we will order the stuff and start extruding. We are giving ourselves two weeks to do the extrusion and packing. (1 week for the resin to arrive. 1 weeks to extrude and ship it. 2 weeks for you people to order enough. Do that faster and we ship faster.)
Once that launch is done we will hold PCTG in inventory and will maintain that price for the near future.
Do the Simple Things
Now that we know that you guys will order enough it we will do what we have always done. Simplify and reduce.
We will place distribution in the midwest which will decrease shipping a dollar to two.
We will scale up production to reduce the raw material more and more.
Whatever else we need to do
Not a lot of colors. You can have any color you want, as long as it is Black.
Take it Down
PCTG can be sourced for about $2.75/KG at the right volumes volumes (semi loads at a time). We have done this with PLA already to get to $10. At that cost we think we can get a 3KG spool made and shipped for ~12-13/kg and keep it sustainable. (We have to pay rent and maintain equipment. Also AI has not touched filament manufacturing much yet, so we still have to pay Meatbag Humans to work. Damnit! Inefficient) That is just a matter of scaling and bringing in some production internally.
This round is being done with a partner. They have used it more than we have and are good at what they do. And they wanted to help. With any partnership people are hesitant and costs are higher at the start. We will deepen that partnership and want to. We want to grow manufacturing in the USA. But if for some reason the scale of demand from Tangled is not enough for that partner to keep the relationship as the prices drop then we will take the production in-house.
We don't need to make money from Filament (Slant 3D runs print farms). So that is another area where we can cut costs. Tangled has to be sustainable but it has never really been profitable. But we are OK with that.
Tangled Filament has been a great project. We were able to drop the cost of USA-made PLA to $10/KG and hold it there. We have been able to force other manufacturers to up their game. And we have been able to create a robust supply chain for many print farms that use us.
It is time for next step. PLA is easy. PCTG will be a bit harder. Honestly it is possible that this first batch might suck. And we will certainly make some sort of mistake. But at the end of the day we will drive down the cost of this material. And we will continue on the mission of creating really good quality low cost materials so that the 3D Printing industry can keep growing.
Injection molding raw materials costs quarters. Filament should not cost 10's of dollars. So we are fixing that.
Below is the product Description and some other details you might like.
Standard Black ProPCTG
1.75 diameter (+/- 0.05mm)
3 KG of filament per spool (Pay Attention to This. The Spool is Big)
Plastic Spool (12 inch diameter)
So Why 3KG. Well It lets us make it cheaper. Larger spools let us reduce the number of spools used and the number of man-hours in making a spool of material. This all creates savings that we can pass on to you.
It is ridiculous that US manufactured commodities like filament are not more competitive with foreign options. We are working to change that.Â
Here is a great set of print profiles created by 3D Fuel (Buy some of their stuff they have more colors)
And if you are Totally new to PCTG here is a good summary video