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I guess I should have been more clear...I was referring to the fact the last 10K was the last time the specifically mentioned "18".
I was pointing out the fact there was an increase, without mentioning the older numbers.
I assumed others were aware of the older 10k's....my mistake.
ASTM/EWI/Auburn-NASA collaboration to accelerate AM standards at Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence.
Was a great presentation at AMC last week.
"This game-changing collaboration will build a strong foundation for the future of additive manufacturing," said Katharine Morgan, president of ASTM International. "The synergy among Auburn, NASA, EWI and others — combined with the trailblazing work of ASTM's additive manufacturing committee — will help fill industry gaps and accelerate innovation. It's clear that this new center has the potential to shape the future of industries like aviation, auto, medical and more."
Nima Shamsaei, associate professor of mechanical engineering, has spearheaded Auburn's efforts to formalize the National Center for Additive Manufacturing Excellence and to obtain the ASTM Center of Excellence designation, along with Auburn University co-investigators Tony Overfelt, Scott Thompson, Bart Prorok, Mike Ogles and Steve Taylor.
"The efforts by our faculty are resulting in significant dividends to our research program," Roberts said. "To be recognized by ASTM International is quite an honor and we look forward to a productive, collaborative relationship with ASTM and EWI."
EWI
The EWI team has more than 40 years of combined experience in additive manufacturing, supported by EWI’s materials, nondestructive evaluation, lasers, arc welding, and design, controls, and automations groups. Based on this expertise and recent expansion in Buffalo, EWI has been able to quickly grow capabilities in additive manufacturing and solidify EWI’s AM team as a thought leader in the industry.
Technical Expertise
Process and Application Expertise
All Powder Bed Fusion processes
All Directed Energy Deposition processes
Solid State AM processes.
EOS North America material development partner.
Materials and process development
In-process sensing and quality control
Post process nondestructive inspection (UT, EC, X-Ray CT)
Qualification, Certification, and Design Allowable Generation
Metallurgy
Powder characterization
Heat treatment development
Property databases
Powder production/modification
Post-process inspection
Machine design and build
Design for Additive Manufacturing Processes and Materials
Equipment and Lab Resources
Objet Connex J750
MarkForged Mark Two
EOS M280
Arcam A2X
EWI Design and Built Open Architecture Laser Powder Bed Fusion for Sensor Evaluation.
Arc deposition robotic workcell
Laser deposition robotic workcell
ExOne Innovent
Fortus 450mc
Objet 30 Prime
Numerous Desktop 3D Printers including: LulzBot, Hyrel E5, RoboX 3D, XYZ Printing Da Vinci, Formlabs Form 1, PegasusTouch Printer, B9 Creator, Mojo, Cubify.
X-Ray CT, UT, ET
Powder Characterization
Powder Production
Surface Characterization
Materials Characterization and Testing
https://ewi.org/technologies/additive-manufacturing/
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6400415294984114176
Like you said, I said, Sigma states, they have filed for 18 patents.
Those not accounted for on the USTPO, are more than likely still being processed.
The average time for an application to be published is 18 months.
The company has referenced "patent applications" (plural) towards their IPQA technogies in previous quarterly reports but the last 10K was the first time they mentioned the specific number of 18 patents.
We have filed 18 patent applications on our In-Process Quality Assurance™ (“IPQA®”) process and procedure for advanced manufacturing. In addition, we anticipate that our core PrintRite3D® software will enable our customers to combine their digital manufacturing technologies with our 3D manufacturing QA to achieve both cost savings and more reliable parts. We believe that certain vertical markets would benefit from our technology and software, including aerospace, defense, bio-medical, power generation, and oil & gas industries because: (1) they each stand to benefit by taking advantage of the weight/strength/performance ratios that can often be optimized by taking advantage of 3D design; (2) they each stand to benefit by taking maximum advantage of 3D manufacturing’s material cost savings resulting from designing parts to needed tolerances while requiring less metal; and (3) there are severe consequences for quality failures in some of their products. We provide our software products to customers in the form of Software as a Service (“SaaS”).
Sigma Labs is securing their IP very aggressively and will maintain a strong position with this IP for the foreseeable future.
Our software, both under issued patents and applications, are years ahead of the competition.
With our ongoing collaborations with ANSYS and IIOT-OXYS, we will continue to have state-of-the-art solutions for IPQM.
Glta SGLB
The payment isn't due until May 18, 2018.
What's the rush? Pay after the ER to keep that 100k on the books.
Smart.
Plausible.
The alternative, not so much.
Business 101 course should be available at the local community college, good luck
Glta
SGLB
There's only 100k left of that loan.
The rest of the directors and those who work for the company would never let that happen as it would basically destroyed the company they work for including our CEO.
The entire company would have to go bankrupt for them not to pay off that loan, for that loanee to then gain ownership of that patent, which is far from happening.
The company could literally pay it off at any time they wanted to as of now.
And even if they couldn't if it came down to the patent being subject to that, I'm certain the company would find a way to come up with 100k even if it was from all of their pockets to continue the company they work for and hold value of the stock they own in this company.
Nonsensical argument.
Glta SGLB
I'd have to see the quote you're referring too, but this idea of a global supply chain of data is the latest application being used by the leaders of the industry such as DoD and those heading into production.
Many companies are working on block chain software to secure the data from AM platforms to incorporate Prediction, CAD/CAM, process parameters, in situ monitoring data, and CT and post process data.
This block chain security, incorporated with AM platform software which consists of many different softwares for end to end production of AM processes.
Since Sigma Labs PR3D is a web based interface, it can be easily intergrated into any AM platform and securely transfer data via a block chain software.
The main purpose of Sigma Labs latest software releases, specifically identify feature based qualities.
This GREATLY reduces the amount of data mined from Sigma Labs software, making it much different from every other OEM claiming in process monitoring, when their software collects all the data from the sensors, which ends up potentially being gigabytes to terabytes per layer.
Sigma Labs extracts only the necessary data which reduces this data to kilobytes to megabytes per layer.
This data, is presented with an 8 second delay to transfer the data, layer by layer.
This is the only software on the market that provides real time actionable data.
Every presentation today mentioned the importance of in process monitoring data.
Sigma Labs specifically mines the data features needed depending on the application of the build.
Sigma Labs is everywhere.
Part of Moogs US Naval proposal, part of NIST testbed and multiple studies, EWIs testbed and multiple study.
Working actively with ANSYS to incorporate our software with theirs.
Prediction software is extremely valuable, our software directly correlates to ANSYS data.
Sigma Labs is working with multiple companies involved in production and creating this digital thread of build data.
When these global companies need to send gas turbine print data from Sweden to North Carolina, they will need the verified in process monitoring data to be transferred securely, and the confidence to know that it doesn't matter what printer or material or part they are producing, as PR3D is machine agnostic and only cares about feature based Qualification from melt pool data.
Glta SGLB
Mark's presentation at EWIs AMC was fantastic. Explanation of the real importance of REAL TIME FEATURE BASED QUALITY ASSURANCE.
Many of today's speakers all spoke of the importance of material qualification as well, and many still focused on post process analysis.
GE specifically labeled "Certification and Qualification" as a "Consumer Barrier"
Which includes GE as they are still cutting and CT scanning.
ASTM representative spoke of speeding up the standards, and that the AM standards were started far too late in the Technology development, which is why the delays we've seen are occurring.
ASTM is using EWI and NIST testbed to evaluate NDI and NDE technologies.
ASTM is using NASA, who has done studies specifically using Sigma Labs software, for R&D for standards.
Next ASTM meeting is in November. 2 of the I believe 5 topics focused on NDE technologies.
ASTM is also creating an "In-process Monitoring Data Repository" which brings us back to the value of the data we collect and represented in the Moog presentation on the subject of creating a verified data supply chain.
NIST presentation was very heavy on data analytics, and correlating defects with in process monitoring data (remember they also have done studies specifically using Sigma Labs Technology)
And patent 4893 getting held up for correction or clarification.
Pubs Case Remand to TC
390,952
An allowed application may be returned to the
Technology Center (TC) for additional work or
clarification.
soon my friends. very soon
glta SGLB
I know on the assignment tab it still shows L1 Capital, but on the latest filing document posted 5-9-18, it says it is only assigned to Sigma Labs.
https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/view/BrowsePdfServlet?objectId=JGXN79MDRXEAPX5&lang=DINO
Comparing apples to oranges.
cant compare two completely different companies in completely different markets, probably in completely different sectors.
it may not matter in some scenarios if you have a loan on your patent,
However, it absolutely undeniable in any situation, it is more lucrative to the owner of ANYTHING to own it outright, rather than to owe money to another entity who controls the asset until you pay it off.
Business 101
Do DD
glta SGLB
so youre comparing OTC companies that are not bringing a commercial product to the industry and have absolutely nothing to do with Sigma Labs.
no correlation at all whatsoever.
it does matter because once they pay off the notes, they regain full ownership of the patents that were used as the lien in case the balance could not be paid.
Since it has been paid thru 2017, (less 100k due May 18th, that we currently have the funds to pay off if we havent already), we now or will soon have full ownerships of our patent, which is in the process of being granted.
so, any doubts to revenues from the patent will be nullified once Sigma Labs regains 100% ownership.
i beleive this is the information on that note.
On September 29, 2017, the Company entered into amendments (the “Amendments”) to the October 17, 2016 Secured Convertible Promissory Notes and Warrants to purchase shares of the Company’s common stock, pursuant to which, among other things set forth in the Amendments, (1) the exercise price of the Warrants was reduced from $4.13 per share to $2.00 per share, and (2) the conversion price of the Notes was reduced from $4.13 per share to $2.00 per share. Under the Amendments, we paid the Holders an aggregate amount equal to $500,000 (representing 50% of the outstanding principal balance of the Notes) plus all accrued interest on the Notes. In consideration of the foregoing, the Holders agreed to, among other things, extend the payment date of the remaining 50% of the outstanding principal balance of the Notes from October 17, 2017 to the earlier of May 18, 2018 or the closing of our next underwritten public offering of securities in which we raise gross proceeds of at least $3,000,000 (should we elect to commence and close such an offering of securities).
On December 27 and 28, 2017 the Holders Converted $400,000 of the $500,000 Notes principal and $8,556 of accrued interest on one of the notes into 204,278 shares of common stock and exercised 56,000 of the warrants @ $2.00 per share for 56,000 additional shares of common stock.
At December 31, 2017 the Company had the remaining $100,000 Convertible Note outstanding and due on the earlier of May 18, 2018 or the closing of our next underwritten public offering of securities in which we raise gross proceeds of at least $3,000,000 (should we elect to commence and close such an offering of securities).
so, Due May 18th, and can be paid earlier...only 100k left to pay.
I think the uptick in the price per share after that announcement with LZN, was partially due to the knowledge that they have access to a large number of printers, including collaborations with multi billion dollar operations, who also have access to hundreds of printers.
At rapid, that was one of the newest and most advanced talks with in the industry.
Companies are now looking at setting up factories with HUNDREDS of printers.
Companies are currently inquiring with IIOT hardware and software providers, to create the possibility for mass production.
With Sigma Labs current PR3D capabilities of being able to, as John Rice described, connecting groups of up to 5 printers at a time, with no real limit exponentially to how many groups you connect via a proper IIOT set-up, it would seem that Sigma Labs could easily integrate into these vast mass production facilities.
We are no longer talking about systems for just a couple machines. We are talking about full commercialized integration for mass production.
See larger companies are looking at upwards of 400 printer facilities, of course smaller companies that we currently work with may still be in the 20-40 printer capabilities, but the growth in printer sales YOY was certainly impressive.
If that continues, the higher probability sigma labs sees a double digit installation in the relativily near term.
Glta
SGLB
I understand the ownership and "mortgage" analogy, but same with having payments left on your house and something terrible happens, the bank is coming knockin'.
Just would like to see it back in our hands with production apparently coming closer
Damn. We gotta pay that off and get our IP back ASAP
Updated ----4893
*Change in power of attorney, could easily be the transferring of the patent back to Sigma.
DateTransaction Description
05-04-2018Supplemental Papers - Oath or Declaration
05-07-2018Amendment after Notice of Allowance (Rule 312)
05-07-2018Miscellaneous Incoming Letter
05-09-2018Email Notification
05-09-2018Email Notification
05-08-2018Application Is Considered Ready for Issue
05-07-2018Issue Fee Payment Verified
05-09-2018Filing Receipt - Replacement
05-09-2018 Change in Power of Attorney (May Include Associate POA)
05-07-2018Issue Fee Payment Received
Our "soon to be approved" patent is filled with just about everything to solidify our position on the industry, including the patent describes this can be used for multiple methods of AM.
"DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF SPECIFIC EMBODIMENTS
[0024] Embodiments of the present invention relate to methods and systems for conducting quality assurance monitoring during additive manufacturing processes.
[0025] Additive manufacturing or the incremental and sequential assembly or construction of a part through the combination of material addition and applied energy, takes on many forms and currently exists in many specific implementations and embodiments.
[0026] 3D printing or additive manufacturing is any of various processes for making a three dimensional part of virtually any shape from a 3D model or from an electronic data file derived from a scan of a model or from a 3D CAD rendering. The various processes have in common the sintering, curing or melting of liquid, powdered or granular raw material, layer by layer using ultraviolet light or a high power laser, or electron beam, respectively.
[0027] An electron beam process (EBF3) was originated by NASA Langley Research Laboratory. It uses solid wire as the feed stock in a vacuum environment as well as when possible, in zero gravity space capsules. The process is notable for its sparing use of raw material. A focused high power electron beam is translated and creates a melt pool on a metallic surface into which the wire raw material is fed under the guidance of a coded deposition path. It has been used to produce components in sizes from fractions of an inch to tens of feet, limited only by the size of the vacuum chamber and the amount and composition of the wire feedstock that is available.
[0028] Selective heat sintering (SHS) uses thermoplastic powders that are fused by a heated printhead. After each layer is fused, it is lowered by a moveable baseplate and a layer of fresh thermoplastic powder is replenished in preparation for the next traversal of the printhead.
[0029] Selective laser sintering (SLS) uses a high power laser to fuse thermoplastic powders, metal powders and ceramic powders. This is also a scanning technology where the laser path for each layer is derived from a 3D modeling program. During the construction process, the part is lowered by a moveable support by exactly one powder layer thickness to maintain the laser's focus on the plane of the powder.
[0030] Direct metal laser sintering (DMLS), nearly identical to SLS, has been used with nearly any metal or alloy.
[0031] Selective laser melting (SLM) has been used for titanium alloys, chromium/cobalt alloys, stainless steels and aluminum. Here, the material is not sintered but is completely melted using a high power laser to create fully dense components in a layerwise fashion.
[0032] Fused deposition modelling (FDM), is an extrusion process where a heated nozzle melts and extrudes small beads of material that harden immediately as they trace out a pattern. The material is supplied as a thermoplastic filament or as a metal wire wound on a coil and unreeled through the supply nozzle. The nozzle position and flow is computer controlled in three dimensions. "
But I liked this excerpt as well.
**
At step 805, once such features are established and correlated both in the real-time and post-process regimes, a process window can be defined based on the in-process limits of both Eulerian and Lagrangian data corresponding to nominal conditions, i.e., those conditions that have been verified to result in acceptable microstructure and/or acceptable mechanical properties and/or acceptable defect structures as determined by post-process destructive analysis of the witness coupon or equivalent regions in the build. Therefore the practical import of achieving this state is that the process may be defined to be in a nominal regime by virtue of actual in-process measurements directly corresponding to the physical behaviors occurring in the additive manufacturing process, as opposed to defining such a process window by using ranges of the machine settings, or other such variables included in a process parameter set, which are further removed from the process. In other words, embodiments of the present invention differ from conventional systems that only define process parameters. Embodiments of the present invention determine the in-process data for both nominal parameter ranges (801) and off-nominal ranges (802), providing an "in-process fingerprint" for a known set of conditions. Given that established baseline dataset, it is possible, for each material of interest and each set of processing conditions, to accurately predict the manufacturing outcome for a known-good product with desired metallurgical and/or mechanical properties.
Siemens and EOS in Finspang Sweden.
Sound familiar?
That's where Siemens produces their gas turbines.
That's where PR3D is installed and our contract for production is held.
https://www.eos.info/case_studies/siemens-industrial-turbomachinery-counts-on-eos-3d-printing-technology
Morf3d partner LOI signed, contract signed,
Edison Welding Institute PrintRite3D®/AMC Conducted Business & End User Agreement
Aerojet Rocketdyne PrintRite3D®/EAP Conducted Business
Spartacus3D, Farinia Group PrintRite3D®/EAP Conducted Business
Additive Industries NV PrintRite3D®/OEM Conducted Business & TDA
Renishaw Plc PrintRite3D® / OEM Signed NDA
Sisma (Italy) PrintRite3D® / OEM Signed NDA
Michelin Fives (France) PrintRite3D® / OEM Signed NDA; evaluation in process
Aspect (Japan) PrintRite3D® / OEM In discussions
I3D PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA & PrintRite3D® Quoted
Moog Inc. / Linear AMS PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA & PrintRite3D® Quoted;
Joint US Navy Proposal Submitted
3DMT PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA; evaluation in process
Polyshape (France) PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA & PrintRite3D® Quoted
Layerwise (3D Systems) PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA & PrintRite3D® Quoted
Honeywell FM&T / Kansas City PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA & PrintRite3D® Quoted
GE Power & Water / Switzerland PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA & Process Engineering
Services Proposal Quoted
Siemens AG PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA & PrintRite3D® Quoted
SAFRAN Group PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA
Solar Turbines Inc. PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA & Process Engineering
Services Proposal Quoted
SpaceX PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA
Rolls Royce Plc PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA & PrintRite3D® Quoted
Pratt & Whitney PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA & PrintRite3D® Quoted
Michelin Tire PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA
Blue Origin PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA & PrintRite3D® Quoted
BMW PrintRite3D® / EAP Signed NDA
Just. A. Bunch. Of. Dots.
Glta
SGLB
GE still having in-situ process monitoring problems.
https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/interview-inside-ge-additive-spectra-h-annika-olme-arcam-132932
You just had to get taught what the difference between digital twin and ipqa is.... You're all out of freebies lol
We found that the average successful US startup has raised $41 million and exited at $242.9 million. We also found that there is a strong correlation between larger exits and companies that raised more money, but no such relationship between the amount of time between founding a company and being acquired or taken public.
Between the two types of exits, we found that the average successfully acquired U.S. startup has raised $29.4 million and sold for $155.5 million, for investor profits of about 7.5x (if you assume 100 percent investor ownership of the company, which is never the case). Startups that went public in an IPO raised significantly more funds, but also took substantially more venture funding, and thus more dilution.
So far, Sigma Labs has raised $17M, not counting anything beyond the latest 10K.
Over that time, Sigma Labs has effectively advanced a prototype software into a commercially available product for mass production of AM operations.
We currently have production contracts with multi-billion dollar operations.
We currently have a collaboration contract with NIST.
We currently are being evaluated by LZN for utilizing our software for mass production of AM purposes.
We have completed a series of R&D projects proving the validity of our software, and collaborations with very prestigious institutions within the AM industry.
We have multiple OEM contracts to incorporate our technogies directly into AM printers.
The industry is moving rapidly towards mass production, for the first time in the history of this type of manufacturing technology.
Sigma Labs is extremely well positioned to capture a significant portion of mass production of high end AM produced parts.
Glta SGLB
When a company "invests" in another company, the company receiving the funding likely has to give up shares or some sort of services in order to receive the investment.
Sigma Labs has received "investment" by some of the most prestigious companies within the additive manufacturing industry by incorporating them into scientific studies to prove the validity of IPQA data to provide the ability of mass production utilizing AM processes.
Until September of last year, all of our revenues were from R&D projects which was the company providing other companies with their time and services in return for money.
Sigma Labs was intelligent enough as a business model to maintain full control of the company while actively working on these programs while also being able to advance their own software and Network of clients.
As the terms of the investment by Boeing to morf was undisclosed, either way, morf is going to be providing Boeing with either shares of the company, or services under the direction of Boeing's demands.
Similar to when a company signs a contract with a DoD entity, they are obligated to put as much time, personnel, and resources into the project as the DoD requests.
This is why Sigma Labs is no longer doing R&D projects with anyone including the dod because they do not want to lock up their Personnel, equipment, software, services, and expertise on one particular project when they could be working on multiple production scale contracts.
While attending rapid recently, I spoke with a representative from a smaller company who only had a couple printers. They are part of a DOD research project, and were planning on installing particular Hardware on to one of their printers, however, under the contractual obligation of the dod research project, they were not allowed to make any altercations to their printers until the project was complete.
This is a prime example of how when a company signs a contractual obligation to another who is providing the funding, they are then under the will of the company doing the funding.
In some cases this is absolutely fine of course and beneficial to both entities, however, sometimes if the funding entity is very demanding and restricting on the applications that the receiving entity is allowed to do, it can be harmful in the short-term.
Another example is sintavia. Right now they are simply doing R&D builds for Honeywell, and CT scanning every single part. Now for sintavia, this is an enormous waste of time, personnel and equipment, when those printers could be producing production parts for another company. However, they know in the long run that Honeywell will eventually allow them to print production parts.
Sigma Labs is past this point of being controlled by a separate entity, such as all the dod projects we have completed to bring our technology to a fully commercialized version available for production purposes.
We have collected all of the data we need on our current software that is available to be commercially purchased.
Any further develop products we will be able to do in-house or with our partners and current customers which will be extremely beneficial to both them and Sigma labs, as they will be receiving the most state-of-the-art technology, and sigma Labs will be perfecting their softwares.
R&D doesn't pay like production does.
Also, giving up a significant portion of your company early on, when your valuation is at it's lowest point, makes no sense.
Same goes to giving up your Limited personnel and resources for a capital investment, unless you are desperate.
Morf, based on the fact they needed a loan for a printer just a few months ago, surely didn't have an extraordinary amount of assets on hand, meaning the valuation of the company is still probably very low.
Whatever Boeing is getting out of this deal, will most likely benefit them more than it will benefit Morf.
They are the big fish and that's how business works.
You need money? Well we can give you it but it's going to cost ya.
Boeing is simply securing their own supply chain as we've seen every larger player in the additive manufacturing industry do over the past 5 years.
Since Sigma Labs is machine agnostic, with very small overhead as a Technology company, we don't need to sell our souls to a larger Corporation just for some funding.
We already have production contracts in hand with some of the largest additive manufacturing companies in the world.
Once they enter into full production and scale up their operations, we won't need funding from anyone ever again.
LZN, Honeywell, Woodward, Aerojet rocketdyne, USAF, Pratt and Whitney, Solar turbines.
Pick any one of them in full production with all of their machines outfitted with our software.
Each of those entities have upwards of 100 printers at their disposal easily or will once they enter production.
Even the lowest on that list probably has a bakers dozen and will continue to purchase more as demand rises as it has.
The talks going on now within the industry, in terms of mass production, these companies are talking about huge facilities with not just 10 printers, not just 20 printers not even just a hundred printers, I've heard talks of entities planning on operations with 400 printers at one location.
Look at any of our current customers, and realize that any individual one of them is capable of achieving that scale, let alone if they ALL do.
Glta
SGLB
Continued volume increase, ask being filled regularly.
Someone is willing to chase this up.
Recent insiders acquiring about 200k shares total, including the CEO.
Industry continues to follow the uptick in activity as projected.
Mark Cola invited to speak at AMC conference in 3 days along with
GE
LPW
ASTM
NIST
EWI
ANSYS
Sandia National Labs
And a couple others
Pretty damn prestigious group to have little ole Sigma Labs presenting.
Just another meaningless dot though :)
Glta
SGLB
It was a mutual agreement that Sigma needed the system to install for another customer, and morf 3D was in the process of receiving their new printers and didn't have time to install it anyway.
It was very generous of them to still pay for it and allow us to get it back, showing they are very reasonable partners.
Well when it comes to patent literature, ripping off, copying, stealing, is all the same.
It will be up to the US patent office to determine if the complexities within each individual patent are enough to separate them and allow for the issuance of multiple patents on very similar Technologies.
I am very up-to-date with their AM capabilities, and yes I understand they are very much behind where they projected to be at this point.
I've spoken with GE software and Hardware Engineers on their current capabilities, and they do have some shortcomings, but they are the same shortcomings that everyone in the industry is having at this time.
No one can incorporate multiple laser monitoring systems to monitor the weld pool effectively on machines with multiple lasers, as there's almost always either an engineering issue fitting all the sensors both on axis and offset axis, or a software problem where they can no longer collect all the data and transfer it in a reasonable amount of time because they do not have the data crunching capabilities of Sigma Labs algorithms and computational Hardware. Another issue is when you have multiple lasers it is hard for the sensors to get an accurate reading as the temperature is much higher and all over the place with multiple lasers compared to just monitoring one single laser.
Unfortunately Sigma Labs is still working on this problem as well.
To accuse someone to be so desperate as to attempt to steal patents is an entirely different animal.
No, I spoke with Sglb personnel about this and morf 3D received one of our systems, however at the time neither Sigma Labs nor Morf had the Personnel or time available to install the system.
Sigma Labs needed the system to install for another customer, so they requested it back from morph 3D.
So currently, morph does not have any of our systems on hand, but have shown that they are absolutely familiar and willing to install are software.
Since it has been some time since that conversation occurred, morph may have a new unit by now but I am not sure.
I'm not saying for sure if foul play did or did not occur, but Scott Gold, the name on GE patents has a PhD in Chemical Engineering, as well as expertise in nanoparticle engineering and material engineering so I'm sure he's no dummy.
As for the others, they may very well be on their way to earning a Ph.D in a particular subject, I didn't do too much investigating as it's not really worth the time.
As long as you have one properly educated individual the others included on the patent are often just researchers who assisted on the project.
Sigma has plenty of patents that have specific differences from GEs, and also published well before GEs acoustic sensing system.
The whole "day after filing" could easily just be GE just ensuring they are next in line if we screw something up, which is legal by all means.
Maybe they're a buncha crooks trying to steal our patents, or maybe they're just trying to ensure they can operate their AM production processes as efficiently as possible.
No I don't think Sigma has directly announced Trumpf was their European OEM.
If you have the announcement please share.
Trumpf likes to keep everything in-house.
They are very quiet and claim they are developing in house solutions for IPQM.
A Sglb employee defined them as "hard to work with" as they do not like "outsourcing" when they have a plethora of resources at their disposal as you pointed out.
And the announcement was defined as with a "European OEM" which could be 100 different companies.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was EOS, SLM, Renishaw, Michelin Fives, or Sisma, since we've signed NDAs with all of them.
Maybe Trumpf wants to keep it a big secret, but as of now they've been an in-house company, and have the resources to do so.
Lets think about this....a 4 year program, for $9 million. If it we're just GE, that's just over 2M per year, but, it's
Together with scientists and engineers from GE Aviation, GE Additive,
Honeywell,
Penn State,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL),
Navy Nuclear Lab (NNL)
and the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM)
So 5 other entities are going to receive some sort of compensation.
Not to mention, at least 2 of those entities (Honeywell and NCDMM) have immediate access to Sigma Labs Technology thru current contracts. So, as they are developing this digital twin software, and realize they need to include IPQM data to ensure the digital twin is printed identically to the original, they could very easily incorporate SGLB tech.
Moog, who we signed an NDA with, discussed the value of IPQM data for digital twin software to be effective.
They figured that out at least a year ago, I forget the date of the speech, it was quite some time ago.
Similar to Melissa Orme's similar remarks, and Ivan Madera's statements directly speaking of sigma labs Technology leading the IPQM software market.
But, back to the main point, that 9M is going to be distributed across a Minimum of 5 other entities.
If spread evenly, that's approximately 320k per company, per year. Even if GE takes a lions share, that's maybe 1M per year, not exactly an impressive figure for a multi-billion dollar company with a global presence.
All those scientists and engineers spending 4 years dedicated to a project that's earning $1M/year.....
I'm sure they'll develop a nice product, maybe, but I'd bet on Sigma Labs decision to focus their extremely smaller staff and resources on production applications to their fully commercialized product.
So is Honeywell, USAF, Pratt & Whitney, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Woodward, Siemens, Catepillar, LZN, NIST, Spartacus3d, Trumpf/EOS or whoever our unnamed OEM is, Morf3d just gained Boeing investment, Additive Industries continues to grow significantly. Singapore, China, US distribution contracts for Sigma Labs in hand.
Those are all current Sigma Labs customers. Active customers.
We have signed a multitude of NDAs with several others including Michelin Fives, BMW, Rolls Royce, Moog, and many other I can't think of off the top of my head. We've also worked with GE gas and power.
So right there, probably half of those companies have similar if not higher valuations, and all are very well funded and have a global base, or quickly gaining global traction.
We've also worked with multiple DoD entities of significant studies on materials, engineering, and part qualification projects.
GE is just one player.
Not God.
Why does GEs opinion means so much?
They are a small fraction of this industry, a small fraction of the OEMs production capabilities, and continue to fall behind companies like Honeywell and Siemens who have much better solutions in the near-term compared to GEs cut and see process, and their just now beginning 4 year program for a digital twin software.
Siemens is actively working with real software providers to implement their individual softwares into their AM platform software.
Honeywell has been a leader in developing materials and engineering of Aerospace parts all over the globe.
USAF and Aerojet rocketdyne have developed powder certifications using SGLB software.
Pratt and Whitney has unlimited resources and have been a leader in AM for years.
Multiple OEMs have contracts with us.
Our software developed with 3D Sim has been proven to directly correlate simulation to in process monitoring data.
We've completed studies with multiple DoD entities.
NIST had been using our software since 2015.
GE is just one player.
GE does not and will not define the AM industry.
Glta SGLB
Well that is simply all based on an opinion and not at all based on what we've seen the industry do thus far.
Through the government programs that we worked on, many of the largest companies in the additive manufacturing industry has continued to work with us including NIST, Honeywell, GE, USAF, Pratt and Whitney, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Siemens, Woodward, are continue to work with the DARPA project, a plethora of NDAs, JTDAs and quoted products with many other very large companies.
So for one to assume based on your own personal opinion that Sigma Labs technology wouldn't make it four years down the road, doesn't seem to be the opinion of the industry who continues to sign contracts and collaborations with us to utilize our current software, not to mention we have our own strategies to continue to improve our software and have been historically.
Why would the National Institute of Standards and Technologies sign a collaboration with a company whose technology and software they do not think will last more than a few years?
This opinion and guesswork does not show any sign of significance based on what has been happening within the industry and the continuing advancement of Sigma labs technology with very large entities and even those in charge of writing the standards for the industry.
Sigma Labs is basically saying that we have a commercially available product for mass production, who wants to print high end parts and be able to qualify their powder and parts in real time?
The answer is everyone, because there is no other software who can collect and analyze all of the data that Sigma Labs technology does in real time and allow for compliance to design intent over multiple machines.
This argument that Sigma Labs has somehow falling out of the equation while we still currently have contracts with the largest players in the additive manufacturing industry that are specifically for production as well as with the entity writing the standards for the industry has absolutely no validity.
Also since September of 2017 Sigma Labs has made it very clear they will not be participating in any R&D projects, this project is 4 years long, Phase 1 is 2 years of Simply finding different softwares to incorporate into the eventually end system.
Sigma Labs is putting all of their efforts and all of their personnel towards production uses of their software and Technology.
All this shows is that GE is a minimum of 4 years away from creating a true digital twin software for additive Manufacturing.
Which, isn't even Sigma labs expertise.
Sigma Labs technology collects the in process data that a digital twin software would need to be effective.
We do not make a digital twin software.
I suggest you research Siemens software suite for additive manufacturing, and watch their demo video, it is very interesting and can show how simple a software like ipqa or any of Sigma Labs softwares, could easily be incorporated into a digital platform , also a digital twin platform, for additive manufacturing purposes.
Sigma Labs testing is on many occasions they are not participating in these R&D project as they see the potential in the production Market being much more lucrative compared to the R&D Market.
If one cannot understand the difference between a digital twin and ipqa, I really don't know what to tell you at this point.
The ability to provide data for digital twin software.
Not digital twin software.
Two completely different things.
Digital twin software and IPQA are two completely different things
Do DD