Toilet Seat How much !!

[MtB]

Just now, Tonka said:

Obviously you have not seen the price of ordinary toilet seats for houses. 

 

The OP tells us they are £10, further upthread.  

[Tonka]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

The OP tells us they are £10, further upthread.  

For the trade ones that nobody buys or wants. 

[tree monkey]

To be fair, the OP is right, it's a ridiculous amount of cash for a small bit of plastic, I bought a refresh kit a few years ago that included a cassette, bog seat and some elsan and cleaner for less than £100 just shows how insanity of it.

Unfortunately everyone else is right as well, small, captive market with no real competition,  bugger all we can do about it unless you are willing to get inventive 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

5 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

................bugger all we can do about it unless you are willing to get inventive 

 

From a '60s Nuclear War householders preparation booklet :

 

 

 

[tree monkey]

3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

From a '60s Nuclear War householders preparation booklet :

 

 

 

What a cracking idea, the bag can just be tied up and thrown in all those convenient CRT bins

[MtB]

10 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

Unfortunately everyone else is right as well, small, captive market with no real competition, 

 

This is the nub of the problem. The tooling costs to make a "cheap bit of plastic" are eye-wateringly massive but the unit price of the bit of plastic is the only way of recouping it. 

 

If anyone here considers £44 each for perhaps the 12 bits of polythene making up the bog seat 'profiteering', there is nothing stopping them stumping up say £100k for the tooling and renting a factory to make some themselves.  I would be interested to see their calculations to come up with what price they would charge for them, given they would probably sell perhaps 1,000 a year.

[pete.i]

10 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

From a '60s Nuclear War householders preparation booklet :

 

 

 

 

I would think that if boaters took up that idea those plastic bags would end up hanging from various tree branches around the system just like dog poo bags just waiting to burst and distribute their contents all over the unlucky person underneath.

[Tony Brooks]

Big 3D printer?

 

I would have thought it would be ideal for such low volume jobs.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Tony Brooks

[Jon57]

3 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

Big 3D printer?

 

I would have thought it would be ideal for such low volume jobs.

May be a 3 P printer might be better.😜

[Alan de Enfield]

7 minutes ago, pete.i said:

 

I would think that if boaters took up that idea those plastic bags would end up hanging from various tree branches around the system just like dog poo bags just waiting to burst and distribute their contents all over the unlucky person underneath.

 

 

[enigmatic]

10 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

This is the nub of the problem. The tooling costs to make a "cheap bit of plastic" are eye-wateringly massive but the unit price of the bit of plastic is the only way of recouping it. 

 

If anyone here considers £44 each for perhaps the 12 bits of polythene making up the bog seat 'profiteering', there is nothing stopping them stumping up say £100k for the tooling and renting a factory to make some themselves.  I would be interested to see their calculations to come up with what price they would charge for them, given they would probably sell perhaps 1,000 a year.

tbf the tooling costs were covered for Thetford when they built the tools to sell new units

They've just chosen to profit more from spares and less from the original unit, knowing that they've got a competitor for the new units and nobody will compete for the spares. Aren't Dometic's toilets, which are a little cheaper, notorious for even more expensive spares?

[MtB]

4 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

Big 3D printer?

 

I would have thought it would be ideal for such low volume jobs.

 

That's an interesting idea. The hard bit would be 3D scanning the old seat, hinges etc. 

 

The only 3D printed items I've ever seen in real life have been like a very fragile aerated plastic rather like a packaging material. Can 3D printing produce items with some serious structural strength? I know next to nothing about them.

[enigmatic]

9 minutes ago, pete.i said:

 

I would think that if boaters took up that idea those plastic bags would end up hanging from various tree branches around the system just like dog poo bags just waiting to burst and distribute their contents all over the unlucky person underneath.

Could be strategically placed at cyclist height

[Jon57]

1 minute ago, enigmatic said:

tbf the tooling costs were covered for Thetford when they built the tools to sell new units

They've just chosen to profit more from spares and less from the original unit, knowing that they've got a competitor for the new units and nobody will compete for the spares. Aren't Dometic's toilets, which are a little cheaper, notorious for even more expensive spares?

Just like any business plan would then. 👍

[Tracy D'arth]

1 minute ago, enigmatic said:

tbf the tooling costs were covered for Thetford when they built the tools to sell new units

They've just chosen to profit more from spares and less from the original unit, knowing that they've got a competitor for the new units and nobody will compete for the spares. Aren't Dometic's toilets, which are a little cheaper, notorious for even more expensive spares?

Only if the Dometic parts are available, many are not.   I had a Dometic bog with the foot operated lever which cracked where the spindle went in. This simple part is not available as a spare, you have to buy a whole new loo.

[MtB]

8 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

tbf the tooling costs were covered for Thetford when they built the tools to sell new units

They've just chosen to profit more from spares and less from the original unit,

 

Yes, a perfectly normal business model. Most manus do this, car manus especially noted for it. Build and sell a product for whatever the market will pay, often at a loss. Then recoup your costs from the spare parts line that you made for yourself by selling the initial product at a heavy loss. I suspect this is all Thetford are doing. 

 

I'd be interested in how you know they covered their tooling costs initially. From my experience in manufacturing I'd suggest they most certainly didn't, and selling spare parts at full margin for a number of years is integral to the business plan, in order to get back the initial investment.

Edited August 22, 2021 by MtB

[Tim Lewis]

Thank yourself that your boat wasn't built by the US Navy!

 

Only the Pentagon Could Spend $640 on a Toilet Seat | The Nation

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

8 minutes ago, MtB said:

The only 3D printed items I've ever seen in real life have been like a very fragile aerated plastic rather like a packaging material. Can 3D printing produce items with some serious structural strength? I know next to nothing about them.

 

Yes, it is such a problem that the firearms guidance document issued to the Police has been amended to include firearms and components manufactured using 3D printing.

(Being 'plastic' they do not set off the alarms at airports etc.)

 

 

3.25 The manufacture, purchase, sale and possession of 3D printed firearms, ammunition or their component parts is fully captured by the provisions in section 57(1) of the Firearms Act 1968. The definition of firearm in the Act includes any component parts. 3D printed firearms are subject to strict control in the following respects:

a. under section 1 of the 1968 Act, it is an offence for an individual to possess, purchase or acquire any component part of a firearm without a certificate;

b. under section 3 of the 1968 Act, it is an offence for a person to manufacture or possess for sale a component part of a firearm acting by way of trade or business; and

c. under section 5 of the 1968 Act, it is an offence for a person to possess, purchase, acquire, manufacture, sell, transfer, possess for sale or transfer, or purchase or acquire for sale or transfer, a component part of a prohibited weapon without the authority of the Secretary of State for the Home Department or by Scottish Ministers in Scotland

Edited August 22, 2021 by Alan de Enfield

[enigmatic]

5 minutes ago, MtB said:

I'd be interested in how you know they covered their tooling costs initially. From my experience in manufacturing I'd suggest they most certainly didn't, and selling spare parts at full margin for a number of years is integral to the business plan. 

That was pretty obviously a guess, but if they still haven't covered the costs for the C200 after making it for many years before moving on to new models, their projections for future spares might be a little optimistic. You can guarantee a lot of customers live with yellow seats and only one cassette too, and you can replace the whole unit for less than that seat cost if you don't mind a Port Potti type design, including a quite nice-looking premium Porta Potti designed by Thetford

Edited August 22, 2021 by enigmatic

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Yes, it is such a problem that the firearms guidance document issued to the Police has been amended to include firearms and components manufactured using 3D printing.

(Being 'plastic' they do not set off the alarms at airports etc.)

 

 

3.25 The manufacture, purchase, sale and possession of 3D printed firearms, ammunition or their component parts is fully captured by the provisions in section 57(1) of the Firearms Act 1968. The definition of firearm in the Act includes any component parts. 3D printed firearms are subject to strict control in the following respects:

a. under section 1 of the 1968 Act, it is an offence for an individual to possess, purchase or acquire any component part of a firearm without a certificate;

b. under section 3 of the 1968 Act, it is an offence for a person to manufacture or possess for sale a component part of a firearm acting by way of trade or business; and

c. under section 5 of the 1968 Act, it is an offence for a person to possess, purchase, acquire, manufacture, sell, transfer, possess for sale or transfer, or purchase or acquire for sale or transfer, a component part of a prohibited weapon without the authority of the Secretary of State for the Home Department or by Scottish Ministers in Scotland

 

But how much do these rigid plastic 3D printings cost?

 

Printer? 

Scanning cost?

Materials per unit?

 

Cheaply enough to make £10 bog seats?

[Tony Brooks]

10 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

That's an interesting idea. The hard bit would be 3D scanning the old seat, hinges etc. 

 

The only 3D printed items I've ever seen in real life have been like a very fragile aerated plastic rather like a packaging material. Can 3D printing produce items with some serious structural strength? I know next to nothing about them.

 

I have seen a complex metal prototype component from a specialist 3D printer.

 

The strength of a component would depend upon the feed stock and printer capabilities (nozzle heat etc.). I suspect the items you have seen use readily available and cheap feed stock that melts at low temperatures,

[Ex Brummie]

10 hours ago, MtB said:

 

They don't need to justify it, they can charge whjat they like in a free market economy. Just as you don't have to justify deciding to paint yours instead of paying £44 for a new one.

 

But by way of explanation, I'd suggest the ten quid ones in B&Q are that cheap because of the economy of scale. House bog seats are very 'standard'. They probably make them in batches of about a million in China by workers on £1 a day, while the 200CS seats are probably made 500 at a time in Thetford, China by workers on £28k a year with a pension. £1 a day.

Pardon me for editing your post.

The last Thetford toilet I bought was made in China, and the quality of it certainly showed that. Then again, it cost less than the one I bought 12 years ago that it replaced.

[Tracy D'arth]

Bog seats should be black, they always were for a good reason.

[MtB]

1 minute ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I have seen a complex metal prototype component from a specialist 3D printer.

 

The strength of a component would depend upon the feed stock and printer capabilities (nozzle heat etc.). I suspect the items you have seen use readily available and cheap feed stock that melts at low temperatures,

 

How much would the printer cost? £10k perhaps? 

 

For a print run of say 500 bog seats for the Thetford, that still works out at £20 per seat, just for the machine to print them. I wonder how much a 3D printing company would charge to scan and print them.

[tree monkey]

24 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

That's an interesting idea. The hard bit would be 3D scanning the old seat, hinges etc. 

 

The only 3D printed items I've ever seen in real life have been like a very fragile aerated plastic rather like a packaging material. Can 3D printing produce items with some serious structural strength? I know next to nothing about them.

Yes, they are printing all sorts of serious kit now.

 

A slightly silly but entertaining example, not structural but interesting 

 

 

9 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

How much would the printer cost? £10k perhaps? 

 

For a print run of say 500 bog seats for the Thetford, that still works out at £20 per seat, just for the machine to print them. I wonder how much a 3D printing company would charge to scan and print them.

The point is I suppose is once bought the printer can print anything within it's capabilities