[Trivers]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

$800 is lot, but it's specialized piece with high performance demands.

So you're not talking about off the shelf parts bin assembly from mass produced components.

It would easy enough to spec and fabricate, but now you are talking about a made to spec one-off, which brings your costs right back up.

Point being, the difficulty isn't in the engineering, it's in the cost containment.

Like if you saw an amazing custom set of headers for an engine, or an amazing piece of furniture. Someone could replicate it with enough specs and visual cues, but then the labor involved in fabrication would bring your costs right back up.

That is, unless you compromise and accept the performance specs of off-the-shelf kit even if they don't meet that of the desired product.

Maybe an easier route would be to shop around for some high performance chocolate fountains from a restaurant or restaurant supply suffering from the quarantine economy, and then fabricate alternative piping off the impeller, or maybe even scout out a distressed candy manufacturer facility for some of their food-grade components.

Your biggest pinchpoint is acquiring a motor that will move material of that viscosity quietly and cleanly without burning out. Most reliable options eat up half your cost right off the bat [why I recommend looking into closeouts on commercial fountains]. Next is the fit and finish of the augur and tube. There's tons of tubing out there, but fabbing the augur, likely preferably out of silicone, to match the tube, is the costly part. Then you need a clean and reliable link between motor and augur that will likely need to be custom fab.

Yep. Exactly my thoughts.

Thus, I appealed to the collective wisdom of CP and Reddit.