I’m a hopeless perfectionist and so I would be interest to know if there is a way to flush the needle with argon prior to inserting into the cork? The needle is filled with air/oxygen when the Pungo is not in use and with the first press you push this (very small amount) of air/oxygon into the bottle before the argon enters the bottle.
Have you considered offering the needle also in an uncoated stainless steel version? You might be able to electro-polish the stainless steel to give it a smoother surface. Reason why I ask is that there are discussions since years if teflon-like coatings can cause noxious effects and there is no long-term experience with such coatings getting in contact with wine (especially if one is willing to dedicate a Pungo to stay long-term in a high quality wine for years).
Other than that I really like your device and I see it more as a very useful addition to the Coravin than being a competitor.
Hey Kevin, we’re making good progress on our first manufacturing run. We’re about 6-8 weeks from having product ready to ship pending no major disasters, but so far so good. We expect to have our new website up in this time frame as well.
As it turns out, most Kickstarter backers have backed prior projects, and this certainly was the case for us. Our price point was likely a little high for a wine project for the KS regulars. It looks as if $50 - $100 is the sweet spot for consumer-related design projects, which we were above. We kind of suspected this going in, but we figured it was worth trying. At the very least, it would help us hone our marketing message.
This is possible. You can insert the needle part way into a stopper, cover the bottom, and pull the trigger. This will flush the fluid passage with argon. Also, many unopened bottles (likely most) have positive pressure, so after you insert the Pungo, you can pull the trigger part way, which will allow atmosphere from the bottle to flush the fluid passage. Further, if you continue to pull the trigger, argon will flow into the bottle neck and flush the fluid passage as well.
Have you considered offering the needle also in an uncoated stainless steel version? You might be able to electro-polish the stainless steel to give it a smoother surface. Reason why I ask is that there are discussions since years if teflon-like coatings can cause noxious effects and there is no long-term experience with such coatings getting in contact with wine (especially if one is willing to dedicate a Pungo to stay long-term in a high quality wine for years).
We’ve actually tested a non-stick nickel-based coating. This works better than raw stainless but not as well as PTFE (Teflon). The nickel coating doesn’t seem to be that compatible with wine - it became discolored after several uses. Even polished stainless would have too high a coefficient of friction to be practical. If you’re concerned with really long-term usage and wine contact with PTFE, perhaps store the bottle at a slight upright angle so the wine just touches the cork but not the needle.
Lastly, we are continuously testing different coatings. If we find something better than PTFE, we will offer a way for existing customers to upgrade their units.
with regard to PTFE and wine: Problem IMHO is not (only) the direct contact but also the outgassing of PTFE over time…so placing the bottle upright won’t help here.
Please have a look at THERMOLON (www.thermolon.com) for the coating. It is a non-stick ceramic-based coating developed as a non-toxic alternative to PTFE. It’s completely free of PFTE and silicones but still have the non-stick quality of Teflon. I don’t have any experiences with it so far but all you can read about it sound very promising. We did some research for Teflon-alternatives a while ago for one of our projects but as the project has been axed we did not tested it. But I’m sure this could be very good alternative for your needle…it’s very green and very high-tech
PTFE outgassing is very temperature dependent and only occurs at a significant rate at elevated temperatures (~ 750 deg. F). Under vacuum at 25 deg. C, Teflon outgasses at a rate of 6.5 x 10-8 Torr-Liter/sec-cm2, which is low enough to be considered vacuum grade. Further, only the tip of the needle is exposed to the bottle when inserted, which constitutes a very small surface area.
We’ve been looking into ceramic coatings as well. We actually looked into Thermolon years ago, which was the coating used on “Green Pan” cookware. We bought a few Green Pans to try out. They worked great at first, but within a few weeks of testing, eggs started sticking like glue because of scratches in the surface. Perhaps, the coating has improved since then; we can certainly take another look.
Anyone know of their status in terms of delivering product to customers? It seems like Kickstarter projects have a reputation for extending WAY out the delivery date. Hopefully, since they weren’t really using Kickstarter as their main funding, that won’t be the case here.
I’m intrigued overall as I would likely use a system like this for medium term (weeks to a month or two) preservation, not longer term like Coravin seems to be aiming.
It looks as if we’re about 4-6 weeks from delivering product from our first line. Currently, we are brazing up the stainless needle assemblies, which then go out to get coated. We have housings ready to go into our anodizing line, and we have a little work left to do on the triggers and the gas-delivery parts. A lot of this first run are spoken for, but we’ll be setting aside some units for Berserksers who have shown interest on this thread. I will keep you posted.
Thanks to everyone who PM’d! We appreciate the support. Here’s a quick update of where we’re at:
We’ve finally nailed down the coating for the needles. The process took a lot longer than we anticipated, but in the end we have much better product. For a while, we’ve wanted to test some advanced ceramics like DLC (diamond-like carbon) and BAM against the PTFE we used on our original units. We were finally able to get this done in March to settle the question once and for all. We also tested some newer PTFEs (non-PFOA) that have come on the market in recent years.
There was definitely a clear winner in this comparison test, and the new coating is a vast improvement over the original in terms of friction and durability. We were certainly happy with the old coating (people have been using them for more than four years now), but the new needles go into cork like butter. Frankly, we are ecstatic with the improvement.
We’re a little behind schedule, but needle assemblies should be going out this month for coating. The first run is about 85% complete. Some of the outstanding items are the new sealing pins (which we will be making out of stainless), the needle assemblies (as noted above), and the packaging (we just got the dies in last week). We expect to have the loose ends wrapped up within the next 8 weeks. For those who’ve been waiting, thanks for your patience.
With the Coravin you can remove the needle and puncture the cork again later. Just saw the video on youtube and not sure that is the case with the Pungo. Is it?
Coravin just lowered their prices …now 199 and they also have discounted the capsules… I would fined it extremely hard to believe that they can be beaten in design and reliability… our 8 or so are irreplaceable now to our business …
It is the case in theory, however the hole pungo punches is larger and needs a golf tee type thing to seal it back up. And there isn’t a sophisticated after market system marking them as “pungoed”- so caveat emptor all you purchased on pre-pungoed wine.
Not that I expect to ever buy either of these devices, but for my potential BTG uses, Pungo makes far more sense, where I simply drink a single bottle over the course of a week or two. I don’t need to pollinate the entire wine-cellar.