May I DEFEND Pintocrazed here? I worked for 1.5 years for a plastic injection mold company. Sure, I thought about doing a LOT of different parts until I realized what the costs would be.
I'll tell you what this would take to do an injection mold:
1) A 37 ton press. The mold size would be roughly 10x10, be made of P20 steel, and be built in China.
2) The COST of the mold would be around $5000+. The cost to ship the mold would be about $500.
3) It would take roughly 8 weeks to get this mold done.
OK, now you ship it off to an injection molder. EVERY TIME they load the mold on a machine, your going to pay for a batch of resin, AND a setup charge. Then they'll want to punch out a minimum number so as not to waste their time.
If he sold 100 of these at $30, he still hasn't paid for his mold. It would take 167 of them at $30 JUST to pay for the mold. How about shipping? How about the setup charge?
ANYONE who can make parts at reasonable prices (and this is damn reasonable) should be commended. It's easy to complain about parts cost, but you have to remember:
1) Back in the day they punched out MILLIONS, easily amortizing their tooling costs
2) Tell me there's 167 people who are gonna buy this. I guarantee it won't happen
So Pintocrazed, I CONGRATULATE YOU for making this effort. I'm gonna get one myself. THANK YOU for doing this!!!
Chris