SALTGATOR SoftGel Machine: Easily Make Soft, Squishy Items at Home

3-D printing used to be a great hobby and a fun weekend activity, especially for those who want to build their own DIY products. Over the past few years, 3-D printing has gone from a nice-to-have hobby to something useful for fixing broken parts, building simple tools.

Moreover, 3-D printing has also become affordable in recent years. Because of this, many people have started using 3D printers to build useful tools.

3-D printers are best for hard plastic parts, especially when they are solid and steady built, but however, the downside of this of the 3-D printers is, they are not suitable for creating soft stretchable materials which we often find in our real life in the form of squishy toys, wearable bands, grip pads, phone cases, and more.

This limits creators from creating soft gel products at home. Fortunately, a new trend is emerging in the form of softGel injection molding machines to let you easily create soft, flexible, and rubbery objects that are not currently possible with 3-D printers.

However, till now, the traditional soft molding machines are very expensive, and they are often designed for industrial cases with huge factory setups and hydraulic systems, which are highly unaffordable for casual users or even students who want to create fun pieces or prototype products using silicone gel and soft materials.

But thanks to the SALTGATOR desktop soft gel injection molding machine, this is going to change now. Saltgater has introduced its first plug-and-play softgel injection molding machine.

Using this device, anyone, including casual users, students, or someone who wants to create a hobby on the weekends, can now easily and affordably create soft gel material directly from home, as simply as 3D printing.

If you are hearing about softgel molding machines for the first time or are unsure about their real-world benefits, you will learn everything about softgel injection machines and also why the SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine might be a better choice for you.

What Is a SoftGel Injection Molding Machine?

Before going to the SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine, let’s first understand what it actually is, how it works, and how it differs from 3-D printing, and what the actual real-life use cases of this soft shell injection molding material are.

Softgel injection molding machines let you create soft 3D objects like stress balls, soft toys, and various products by injecting soft gel-like materials into a premade mold.

In other words, you have to fill a premade mold with a silicone gel-like liquid and cool it down to create 3-D objects. However, unlike those two methods, such as racing, casting, and industrial injection molding methods, you can now build similar objects at your home using this portable device.

How Is It Different From a 3D Printer?

Both 3-D printing and softgel injection are completely different methods. However, they can work together to build better products.

If you are aware, a 3-D printer builds objects layer by layer using digital models, and it produces them from scratch, or you can also combine them with existing products if it’s blended.

On the other hand, the softgel machines directly inject material into a mold to form a specific shape. So, unlike a 3-D print, where you can design a product from scratch, if you need to build a product using the softgel injection, first, you need to have a premade mold to create the shape.

You can buy a premade 3-D mold from the SALTGATOR and other sites, or build one for your own if you also own a 3D-printer using a free models library.

What Kind of Products Can I Make With This?

Similar to a 3-D printer, you can create endless products using the softgel. For example, if you have kids, you can create cute items such as animals and build custom squishy toys for your kids.

If you are a gamer and use a console, you can pre-build custom joystick grips and silicone covers, and if you also own a mobile, you can also build a TPU case for your smartphone.

Is It Safe and Easy to Use at Home?

Those are the useful real-world cases of the soft gel molding machine, but if you are wondering, is it safe and easy to use at home? There are a few things you need to know.

The melting process itself involves high heat and industrial-grade materials, using an air compressor or hydraulic pressure with complex setups.

However, in this case, since the device is compact and built for home use, you can directly plug it in and use it. Since it runs on low power and also uses non-toxic materials and no hydraulic or high machinery, this is generally safe to use at home and even for non-technical users.

However, it is still not a completely safe device that can be used by children or even beginners who are unaware of using these products. Even though the temperatures are lower than the machinery requires, it still requires you to heat the materials to higher temperatures. If not handled carefully, it can still pose a risk of accidental burns.

5 Reasons Why SALTGATOR Desktop SoftGel Injection Molding Machine Might Be the Best Choice

Portable & Desktop-Friendly

The biggest advantage of the SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine is that it is portable and also desktop-friendly, unlike the traditional soft molding setup, which is often found in industrial and large-scale industries with heavy mixing and machinery.

SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine is portable and, in fact, roughly the size of a coffee maker, which you can now use on any desk without needing a complex setup.

This alone makes it easy for any user to set it up in their house easily, and even for students who want to carry it to the workshop class, and even dorm rooms.

However, being compact and portable also comes with downsides. Due to its compact size, the SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine can only hold up to 120 ml of soft gel material for each injection cycle, which is only designed to create small to medium soft shell objects like switches, phone grips, keyboard caps of mechanical ideas, and more.

You can still technically build larger products. However, you need to split the mold and inject the gel multiple times.

Affordable for Beginners

SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine is an all-in-one product and ready to use out of the box. It is an affordable option compared to the other methods.

The machine is priced around $399, which makes it a more affordable option compared to the other high-end technical and industrial setups.

Plus, the company is also offering early bird pricing for the SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine, which you can now buy for $229-249, making it an even more affordable option for people looking to build soft gel materials.

However, the downside is that along with this machine, you also need premade molds to create a product, but the best part is that you can already use the existing molds to create products, and you can also reuse the soft molds.

Plus, if you also own a 3-D printer, you can create an affordable 3D mold directly from the 3-D printer and use it to create soft gel silicone materials using the silicone.

Beginner-Friendly, No Learning Curve

Unlike the 3-D printing technology, you don’t need to have prior technical knowledge to build or create products using the SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine, since everything is pre-designed and simple, and also simply plug-and-play.

You can directly inject any soft gel into pre-injection molds and cool it down to get the instant products you want to create. Here is how the SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine is beginner-friendly. First, it is simply plug-and-play, meaning you don’t need to set up a complicated assembly and work with software.

You can directly connect the device to the USB or directly plug it in to heat it and start using it. It is also single-button operated; you don’t need to go through confusing steps, since it all depends on the mold device.

You also don’t need to have knowledge about 3-D modelling or even temperatures, and it doesn’t require any calibration. You can simply inject the soft mold into the device and start creating soft products.

Safe for Home Use

SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine is designed to be used in the home or other small places without needing a complex setup, since it is a plug-in device. Also, unlike the resin printers and other high-end setups, SALTGATOR uses low-temperature materials. Because of this, it also doesn’t produce a lot of fumes and is safe to use.

You can use non-toxic, rubbery soft material with no flammable or non-reactive material for the products, and to protect you from accidental burns, the devices come with a full enclosure with protective casing to prevent you from directly exposing yourself to the nozzle while injecting.

It also comes with useful thermal controls to avoid overheating in a water-filled place. It is also quiet to use. However, it still involves heating and melting of materials. It is highly requested that you stay safe to avoid accidental burnouts.

Ready-to-Use Mold Library

Unlike 3-D printing, which you can directly start building objects without a mold, however, in soft gel melting injection, you need a premade mold to create products.

To help you get started right from the unboxing, SALTGATOR is also offering several premade molds, which are ready-to-use small solutions directly from its website.

If you want to buy the SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine, you can also order a few selected molds to get started. If you also own a 3-D printer, it also offers free open-source printable STL files, which you can use on your dedicated 3-D printer to build the molds and start creating soft products.

Plus, you can also design your own custom-made molds. However, the only downside is that with every mold, even though you can use it unlimited times, you still have to buy it separately.

As of now, there is no information on whether SALTGATOR will bundle any free premade molds along with the product. We will let you know once we get the full information.

FAQs about SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine

1. Where can I buy extra soft gel material, and how much does it cost?

Cost can vary depending on the type of silicone gel compounds you want to use. SALTGATOR is expected to offer the official gel pack. You can directly order the soft pack from the SALTGATOR website, or now you can buy it from Kickstarter.

2. How long does it take to make one product from start to finish?

Since the SALTGATOR softgel injection molding machine is built to hold 120 ml of silicone gel, SALTGATOR says you can make one full product in under 10 minutes. Heating to molding might take a couple more minutes.

3. Can I use molds from other brands or third-party STL files?

Yes, you can use molds from other brands and even third-party STL files. If you own a 3-D printer, you can also build your own mold or buy it from third-party marketplaces.

lf you’ve ever wanted to prototype or play with soft, flexible materials at home without investing in industrial-grade equipment, this might be the most accessible tool yet.