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I think it is happening t&l. IPQA is getting to be pretty much required for metal AM to carry on. And like the article stated, it is on the rise. It is clear to me that there is way more awareness and understanding of SGLB within what is happening on the ground in metal AM, by the industry. There is a very clear (to me and others also) disconnect between SGLB investors and what is actually transpiring for SGLB on the ground in metal AM. It will be others who will move into SGLB stock to eliminate the disconnect. SGLB's historical investors are so numb and battered and angry that they will not provide the proper value for the company. Most here demand that ironclad proof be set in their lap before they will believe anything about SGLB. But that mentality will likely cost them in the end with SGLB. I think there will be a sudden move in the stock, over a period of a few days or a week, when the realization of a group of like minded investing communities concludes that SGLB and IPQA is indeed the near future for metal AM.
All the best,
Silversmith
This on-again, off-again, end of day buying over the past weeks sure acts like institutional buying trying to get in the stock without unreasonably moving it all by themselves.
All the best,
Silversmith
I live in Florida, ex Navy. Lots of aerospace and defense companies down here.
All the best,
Silversmith
The whisper on the street is that SGLB's two partner OEM printer manufacturers are integrating PR3D to establish true closed loop control of the print process.
All the best,
Silversmith
There is a huge amount of stuff going on in metal AM across the globe right now. It seems many entities are printing rocket engines with metal AM. And it looks like EBAM is taking over as the leading method for printing turbine rotors. And let the battles begin....Markforged has filed a legal suit against DeskTop Metal for disparaging remarks about Markforged's metal AM process. An earlier patent infringement case was won by Markforged. It seems you can't read anything about a company's effort into a new avenue for metal AM that SGLB hasn't been working with in the past. It seems to me that if SGLB is adopted for powder metal IPQA, they will have already paved roads into medical, automotive, aerospace, oil and gas, and space. Thyssenkrupp put out a white paper analysis that just the Asian manufacturing space alone will be $100 billion annually for AM by 2025.
And serial production is definitely imminent.
All the best,
Silversmith
I'm not calling for a $50 handle for SGLB any time soon, but how does that make it like coke? Coke is a $2.8 billion market cap company. That's a far cry from what $50 would make SGLB.
All the best,
Silversmith
Interesting bit of information Viper. I did not know that had happened. Thankfully it was just a test and not a live mission. All of those rocket engines would have been 100% CT scanned for inspection. But everyone knows that unless the part geometry is amenable to x-ray penetration, CT cannot see the whole part. I'll bet the CT people left a brown streak a mile long after that. But SGLB will probably be in the same boat one day. Something will fail spectacularly along the way. You can't play with rockets and not have spectacular issues along he way. Just ask NASA.
All the best,
Silversmith
No. I don't see anything in there about melt pool duration stuff. But it is interesting none the less.
All the best,
Silversmith
No.
“The meltpool is where everything happens. The trick is not in melting the metal,” said O’Hara. “It’s what happens when the metal solidifies. How long does that metal exist as a liquid, what temperature does it reach, and how fast does it cool? These are the three parameters that determine what you end up with.
Meltpool Monitoring vs. Closed Loop Control
Across the metal additive manufacturing equipment market, it’s common for machines to have meltpool monitoring functionality. This is useful for forensic purposes as described above. Howeverin many processes such as powder bed selective laser sintering (SLS) the meltpool does not exist for a sufficient length of time for a CLC system to make adjustments in real time. In EBAM, the thermal inertia is slower because metal is flowing into the process at a higher rate. This allows IRISS to take measurements at a high sample rate and make CNC adjustments in real time.
All the best,
Silversmith
Beautiful. Lol. I'm good to go.
All the best,
Silversmith
Then find the stuff for yourself.
All the best,
Silversmith
Yes I can back it up.
Did you know that there are more than just Google for internet search engines? Did you know that there sometimes are specific search engines for specific things? Did you know that when you do do a Google search, Google filters out about 50% of the hits in an attempt to limit the deluge? Did you know that you can turn the filter feature off? Did you know there are hundreds of hits in a search that never see the light of day?
The EBAM melt pool duration discussion came from a Sciaky document. The powder bed melt pool duration and closed loop issue came from a Deloitte document. The CT cost discussion came from at least a dozen different white papers. The EU IPQA push is prevalent through the many EU metal AM discussions across the pond. The USA/EU mismatch is in several 3D printing investment analysis reports. The NASDAQ data is in a Mauldin Economics data base, at the very least.
All the best,
Silversmith
Careful Windbag. I don't work for you. And I don't read anything earlier than 2019 for this metal AM stuff. And I don't care for one second if you believe me or not. And I haven't looked for the NASDAQ stuff yet. I know which archive its in, but I will have to go through about a year's worth of documents to find it.
All the best,
Silversmith
Yes. There is getting to be a whole bunch of Quality Assurance type documents out there if you know how to look for them.
All the best,
Silversmith
I just found out why closed loop was so easy for SGLB to exhibit. And why the other IPQA efforts out there, other than electron beam, have not talked about it in their stuff.
It turns out that EBAM's melt pool stays liquid for a much longer time, thereby giving the system time to interpret data and institute an actual printer change for correction. In powder bed, the melt pool is liquid for a very short moment. The other IPQA systems take much too long to interpret and order a change for a correction. But SGLB's huge data reduction enables the time needed for interpretation and correction. So once again SGLB leads the way. This time for closed loop in powder bed.
Another set of documents I saw stated that CT startup costs for post process verification are higher than the printers themselves cost. Plus the annual service costs are higher than PR3D's whole initial purchase costs. There is much out there saying that the industry just cannot go with CT for post inspection. They are saying they must go with IPQA.
Another set of papers flat out stated the same thing I have been saying for a while now. Metal AM in the EU is way further along than it is in the USA. And automotive metal AM will end up being bigger than all other metal AM fields. Large production runs are being eyed up square in the face for the near future in the EU. I would love to see EOS embrace SGLB. It looks like IPQA is imminent in the EU.
All the best,
Silversmith
DARPA pretty much confirmed what GE was doing at America Makes. And by extension it is a bit of confirmation that GE thinks IPQA will be a significantly profitable business within metal AM.
All the best,
Silversmith
That's because it took a very time consuming and costly research analysis by a couple of the investment worlds most accomplished research teams. It is an eye opening number. It is something like 72% or 78% of NASDAQ companies have no profit. I will see if I can find it.
All the best,
Silversmith
That is such a pile of shit.
Try looking at what percentage of companies the NASDAQ has that are actually selling products and have revenue, let alone what percentage has any profit of any kind. SGLB is right where they need to be.
All the best,
Silversmith
Looking further, the MZ Group has taken on, and produced, some duds too. The results over the past three or four years are all over the place. There are more than a few significant big wins, several hundreds of a percent upward moves, while there are also plenty of duds. I guess it is all about the story to be told. We'll see.
All the best,
Silversmith
This is much more than that Herringaid. When MZ Group says they are global, they mean it; from Dubai to China and all in between. They have some very large companies hiring their service. And the little guys as well. But the space is finally seeing that there is a huge difference between the reality on the ground, and the totally amateur investor base in SGLB.
SGLB should flat out be at a $100 million market cap right this very minute based on the reality on the ground, not the money in SGLB's bank account.
Things are more than likely about to change. I suspect the window for getting comparatively inexpensive shares is narrow and closing.
All the best,
Silversmith
It sure looks good for IPQA in this article t&L. Things are really looking like they are happening for SGLB. I would expect that 2020 will be a big year for SGLB and investors. I imagine it won't be too many more months and we will be arguing about what the market cap should be for SGLB. If things continue building toward incorporating IPQA, with initial actual PR3D contracts for serial production, I expect SGLB to move fairly easily into the mid $200 million market cap range. If that happens AND the metal AM industry appears to get its feet under it and get serial production going across a broad spectrum, SGLB can probably move into the upper $300 million range. Either way, there will be more than a few newly minted SGLB millionaires. It should be fun to watch.
All the best,
Silversmith
Not really, but some. It wouldn't be little old SGLB alone against GE. SGLB would hire their own set of law firms. $50 or $100K per year or so retainer, a letter of cease and desist gets presented to GE, the dogs get let out, they get fed when they win the case. But mean while, if GE loses the case, the continued crossing of the patents during any delays and tie-ups in the courts means the damage award goes higher and higher. GE isn't interested in that for sure. Plus, the tech is brand new, in a brand new industry. Things will be a little more cut and dried for determining truth. It won't be like they have 100 plus years of ownership transfers and patent litigation history to sift through for coming up with a ruling. If the patents are truly strong, and SGLB has been using one of the best patent law offices in the world for their patent work, then GE will indeed lose.
All the best,
Silversmith
And the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if maybe the USA metal AM industry isn't now a little worried that the EU will fully draw SGLB into their fold. And that maybe SGLB won't feel the need to play ball with the USA. And that maybe, as a result, the EU will eat the USA's lunch in metal AM.
On another line, the SGLB patents are the real deal. GE will be cornered with them as things stand with the tech now. I don't care what wick says about GE's AI IPQA efforts. There is only so much information you can acquire from a melt-pool. There is only so much information you can infer from watching a weld. And call it what you want, AI IPQA, IPQA, or fu fu dust, dress it up however you wish, it is all about sensing data and inferring from that data. And SGLB owns the patents for that in metal AM. So maybe GE is changing their tone with SGLB; knowing they are going to have to play ball with SGLB at some point. Just some thoughts.
All the best,
Silversmith
I'm not meaning there is any real relationship there. Just like GE, it would be a sleight of hand. My point is about what appears to maybe be the beginning of some hanging onto the coattails of SGLB.
All the best,
Silversmith
I was thinking how interesting it was that with GE owning the soul of America Makes, and as a mouth piece, they are jumping on the SGLB bandwagon by claiming an early connection to PR3D. It is a joke, but they are saying it. Now here is Morf jumping on the SGLB bandwagon. Perhaps the industry knows PR3D is the IPQA solution that will launch serial production; and it is beginning right now.
All the best,
Silversmith
Apparently there are many printers that SGLB sees as growth opportunities. Rice alludes that the success of the current Rapid evaluations will provide cash flow and cash flow growth. Each Rapid eval immediately has a minimum of 10 to 15 printers potential scope, and in most cases many more than that.
All the best,
Silversmith
https://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/901751/sigma-labs-partners-with-major-aerospace-customer-901751.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" >https://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/901751/sigma-labs-partners-with-major-aerospace-customer-901751.html
There is 'desire's' time, and there is metal AM's time. We are getting close but it is still according to metal AM's time. I don't suspect PR3D is part of the six machines MetalFab reported. The report clearly states that they are all multi laser machines. Unless it is simply unreported, SGLB hasn't completed multi laser capability. PR3D may still be in the machines for an upcoming ability to do multi-laser, but I doubt PR3D is being used. I don't know that for a fact. I just haven't come across any information intimating it.
Change comes from the people who take the 'next step', not from the people theorizing about the 200th step (Roosevelt's words, not mine). The metal AM industry is busy taking the next step. We are busy theorizing about the 200th step. But things are looking like serial production and IPQA are the next step. And the 200th step might be that when Wall Street takes another look at the industry, SGLB will be one of the very, very few that is a pure play on the industry. Who knows what valuation might be applied.
All the best,
Silversmith
I think that's about right endra, something pretty close along those lines.
All the best,
Silversmith
I don't really have an opinion on when actual IPQA production will begin. But I do think that actual production will begin when IPQA is incorporated into the printing. I suspect that the completion of PR3D integration with Materialise will be the starting gun going off. When that is, who knows. As a guess I would say 2020. Word of EOS bringing SGLB in would be a very big indicator that that is where things are going, for me.
All the best,
Silversmith
How many really good articles about what is happening with ANY aspect of the metal AM industry has anyone seen in the past two years? And recently there are none at all in my opinion. The Honeywell article this week sheds no light at all on the method of metal AM printing. It is completely a worthless article that has no value other than we learned Honeywell has no intention of printing parts. No one is talking much about any part of the process. That's just the way it is. It is frustrating, but it is the way the industry wants it right now.
All the best,
Silversmith
I don't know about you, but I sleep during the night. Why would I stay up trying to respond to your post. And why do you think all the metal AM companies should be including SGBL in their articles? Do you think GE is going to laud SGLB? Or EOS? Do you think journalists even understand what SGLB and PR3D does? Anyone who can speak directly to the capability and function and success of PR3D is under NDA constraint. Period. You need to up your own game rather than have it all handed to you on a silver platter.
All the best,
Silversmith
All of the information I have seen in the last four to six months illustrates the need for better quality and control of powder characteristics, standards from oversight bodies, capacity and control in printers, and a method for reducing the onerous post process quality function. There are actual post process quality function cost numbers out there. And they are not good. There are a fair number of papers out there that say the dirty little secret of metal AM is that QA inspecting a printed part costs a lot more than it costs to make the part. The long ago estimates of PR3D saving significant percentages of post process quality costs have become very meaningful to those pursuing production printing.
Currently all parts are 100% post process inspected. And we are talking about critical application parts here. It is not possible for the Airbus's, Siemens's and Rolls Royces of the world to decide to commit moving forward into large production runs at these costs. I'll bet that GEA is actually paying more for each AM fuel nozzle now, than when they were conventionally brazed together out of numerous individual pieces. But GEA probably sees a cost inflection point not too far out there, and is moving toward it.
Anyway, compared to the current 100% inspection, with PR3D, you can fully inspect those pieces flagged by PR3D, and apply one of the stringent statistical inspection programs to the remaining printed parts. In the case of a statistical inspection format like C=O, you might inspect 100 pieces out of 5000. If you get no rejects, then no further inspection is required. If you do find rejects in the 100 piece sample lot, then you revert to a more stringent sample size. It is clear that this format would hugely reduce inspection costs. So big savings are to be had with the SGLB product.
All the best,
Silversmith
Your version 5.0 is what changed Windbag. Before, PR3D had to be made to work. You had to know how to access it, and how to interpret it. Now PR3D works on its own and tells just about any skill level looking at it what is going on with the build.
All the best,
Silversmith
I wouldn't say it failed JGault. I would say that prior to version 5.0 you had to be a fairly astute scientist, with Frankenstein at your side, to make PR3D work for you in a meaningful way.
All the best,
Silversmith
What IPQA articles? You seem to be saying that there are at least several IPQA articles written that do not mention SGLB. I am not aware of any IPQA specific articles with any kind of recent vintage. Who wrote them? If it is a corporate entity that wrote them, then NDAs prevent them from even mentioning the names of the players. If it is a journalist writing, then they have to be knowledgeable enough to cover the scope of the topic. And that has long been seen to be in reality far from the case.
But I understand the larger question, why isn't anyone talking about SGLB?
I can only guess. But what SGLB is involved in with these metal AM companies is NEVER not an NDA case. When SGLB enters a contract agreement with the companies taking a look at PR3D, SGLB goes into the very heart of the operation of the potential customer's metal AM floor. They insert PR3D at the absolute very heart of the process. This is touchy stuff. So my take on it is that the NDAs are doing their job. And the journalists that are tinkering in metal AM are not good enough to ferret the information out.
Plus, on a larger note, outside of the metal AM circle there is not much interest. The world got excited about metal AM back in the early part of the decade, Wall Street jumped in all the way, and then they both saw things weren't all they were cracked up to be in metal AM. Metal AM was difficult, not in control, and would not be able to supplant traditional casting operations. So Wall Street pulled out and the world turned to other things. If you look at all the 3D Printing stocks as a group, they are all down over the same period of time that SGLB is down, and with similar percentages.
All the best,
Silversmith
I'll take a stab at it Windbag.
Maybe its because, for the first time ever, the metal AM industry sees that it is necessary and imperative that IPQA be used to enable the yields required for actually moving forward with metal printing. Up until now no company providing IPQA technology has been used in production. Everything before now had little old SGLB, all on its own, trying to squeeze in the door of any and all meaningful companies looking at metal AM. No metal AM company thought they would need IPQA to make metal printing go. Up until now they all thought IPQA was interesting, and maybe in the future. But now, they see that they can't make it work without something to get a grip on yields. And in spite of all the work done already in the industry, for one specific reason, yields have actually fallen somewhat, rather than get better. It is a simple reality. The more that gets printed, the larger the number of rejects. The industry must get this taken care of. So, basically, now they are really looking into IPQA, for the first time ever.
And some additional things on my mind are, who is going to buy GE's printers? The EU isn't going to buy them. The EU is going to buy from Germany, Denmark, France etc. And if that's the case, other than EOS having EOSTATE, which is still just an observational QA platform, who will supply IPQA to the EU metal AM industry? The EU metal industry has from the beginning engaged SGLB. I would say it is SGLB that will supply the EU IPQA. It won't be GE. And who else is there? No one. The hot-bed of metal AM is clearly in the EU. There are already two printer manufacturers working with PR3D, and Materialise working to incorporate PR3D into the seamless printing systems control platform. This has got to be putting pressure on EOS to get on board with PR3D. It seems to me that SGLB is being selected by the EU to supply IPQA, for the first time ever, anywhere.
All the best,
Silversmith
We can count Honeywell out as someone who will either use or acquire SGLB. Godfrey was interviewed this week and stated that Honeywell isn't in the AM game to make parts. They don't want to make parts. They just wanted to research and put together a successful method of printing, and push it out to their vendors. They want to let their vendors spend the capital required to 3D Print, and reap the benefits of lower costs for the parts they buy that are precisely applicable to 3D Printing.
Other than GEA, I can see now why the EU is so much more involved in metal AM compared to the USA. GEA is mostly what's left in the USA. And David Joyce said recently that they are more bullish than ever about the disruption metal AM will bring. But I suspect that the USA is way behind the EU in plans for metal AM.
All the best,
Silversmith
In the last five years my own contacts in the industry have gotten better and better. When things change, I change my outlook too. I have never seen anything to alter my view on the whole effort. Plenty of frustration, but never that the tech was doomed. What I see now is worlds apart from what you apparently see. And things are definitely moving to a direction that will prove your vision faulty.
All the best,
Silversmith
Here we are just two days down the road and the bashing is starting up already. Other SGLB chat rooms are grossly uninformed, unintelligent and filled with scorn for SGLB. It is eye opening to see how many deeply despise SGLB's existence.
But SGLB is winning the IPQA war. They are step by step locking up the position. When metal AM moves to IPQA based production, SGLB will be the go-to supplier. The boots on the ground in the metal AM industry have a very different take on SGLB than does the bulk of the current crop of short sighted investors. If SGLB can keep up the success and coming successes, and Rice can keep up the flow of progressive dialog illuminating their efforts, that is the stuff that causes Wall Street to sit up and take notice. I won't be surprised if a move into SGLB isn't forthcoming near term.
Multi laser capability is now important for SGLB. The industry must have higher capacity printing capability, larger print chambers, faster speed and multi laser chambers. Closed loop looks to be an easy hurdle for SGLB. They are basically waiting for the printer manufacturers to open up access to their internals for coupling IPQA. There is a lot of parallel work being done across the industry for nailing down all the various factors that contribute to good printing. I suspect that much will come together in a big hurry over the next 12 months. I suspect that things will ramp up much faster going forward in the next year.
All the best,
Silversmith
Minus the 28ish percent short term capital gain tax, don't forget. You are maybe clearing $700 and change, and working your butt off, and risking multiple days of exposure doing it. And you have to get it right a bunch of times. I have frequent $20K moves at a time. And I know others here who have $40K and $50K moves at a time. You have to get it right more than twenty times, while I only have to get it right once. There is a maxim in philosophy. I mentioned it here long ago, I think. It states that it is operational error to take timid action while having bold belief. The corollary is applicable as well.
All the best,
Silversmith