ARCAM Q3 results

AMAVF is the correct ticker. It is on the OTC market - maybe your brokerage does not access OTC listings?
Ant

As far as Arcam is concerned ,the only portion of the US defense R&D budget that matters are those consisting of non standard metal forming matters. Carbon fiber would seldom be a competitor.

The fact is that the Europeans are ahead of the US in 3DP of metals, laser and EBM. Which in fact mostly compliment each other. Use of more 3DP by laser (coherent photon beams) will raise awareness of metal 3DP by electron beams , thus benefiting all metal 3DP companies.

A considerable amount of US money has been spent on EBM

http://keck.utep.edu/news.html

http://3dprintingindustry.com/2014/10/16/oak-ridge-national-…

recent Arcam patents cover all type of “energy beams” meaning light . electron, and almost anything else possible in a beam… Whatever type of energy it must be steerable (mirrors for light or similar radiation) or magnetic fields (electrically charged particles), which clearly limits the possibilities.

Metal 3DP will never be the mainstream of metal parts , present methods are cheap and adequate for most uses. Lost wax casting and some of the other methods dating back thousands of years are still in use.

Like BEV , even getting single digit market share would be huge market.

A side note- most of the present generation of engineers are trained to think of avoiding complexity. It is what they learned in school and have been doing all their professional lives… It may take and new generation to realize that complexity is free with 3DP . And is actually something to be desired since resultant components are lighter and takes less raw materials. New versions of the Arcam process will not only be faster but build larger parts, thus adding to the potential market in two directions.

2 Likes

New versions of the Arcam process will not only be faster but build larger parts, thus adding to the potential market in two directions.
Unfortunately whilst that was the plan and the expectation, ARCAM have reported nothing on their FastEBM progress and big area printing. That was quire disappointing. I’m probably going to drop Magnus a note and see if I get a reply on this.

A

Also disappointed. But here are 2 guesses

  1. they want to make a big jump . not a 10% or 20% improvement
  2. there are many slips between lab and production. Normally about 8 years. So I am patient. It may not be as “easy” as the CEO forecasted.

OTOH I really don’t care much whether they come tomorrow or in a year, because present machines are probably adequate for near term demand. And I expect that all that empty factory capacity may be more for making new machines not making more of the old machines.

Also disappointed. But here are 2 guesses

1) they want to make a big jump . not a 10% or 20% improvement
2) there are many slips between lab and production. Normally about 8 years. So I am patient. It may not be as “easy” as the CEO forecasted.

When I corresponded with Magnus previously and from other announcements they gave the impression that they were making constant progress on EBM production speed and updating client machines with over the air updates and patches etc.

OTOH I really don’t care much whether they come tomorrow or in a year, because present machines are probably adequate for near term demand. And I expect that all that empty factory capacity may be more for making new machines not making more of the old machines.

I do. If HP do launch something with 50x improvement and that university research lab brings a 100x improvement then current players are going to find it tough. Also the faster the machines the more AM can penetrate subtractive manufacturing.

Magnus’ comment to me last time was that clients are more interested in speed than big area.

Ant

http://3dprintingindustry.com/2014/11/12/hp-multi-jet-fusion…

http://3dprintingindustry.com/2014/11/11/econolyst-breaksdow…

the biggest threat HP poses is in the market for low-cost parts that demand high-speed production, specifically prototyping bureaus.

almost 180 degree opposite to EBM niche
No threat to EBM.

No metals, and I can only imagine the clogging with tens of thousands of nozzles. If you want pure titanium alloy, titanium has a high melting temperature and almost everything you could make the nozzles out of will melt long before the titanium does. Bonding tough metals with any kind of plastic most likely would negate the reasons for using the metal in the first place.

Multiple technologies (some dating back to 500 BC or so) exist within the field of forming metal parts. EBM will probably be around longer than I will… And I will be happy if Arcam has even a single digit share of the aerospace metals market.

Mauser, this is exactly why I have trouble understanding why people keep making some of these comparisons. Metal vs plastic is not just a different medium, but a whole different technology. Yes, there is some interesting potential in both low volume and high volume plastics, but in the more predictable future, what seem exciting to me is metal.

Guys

HP CAN print metal. They demonstrated this with a record speed metal chain being printed by their prototype earlier in the year and it was shown on Cramer. Look I understand the 3DP space pretty well and I know the difference in metal and plastic printing segments. HP have said and demonstrated they can print high speed metal.

Ant

Yes, but we don’t yet know what they can actually do in terms of real accuracy, strength, finish, etc.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/11/09/hps-3d-prin…

HP’s tech can be thought of as a kind of binder jetting technology, with a touch of laser sintering tech thrown in. Like binder jetting, the process involves the application of a binding agent – which HP calls a “fusing agent” – to the materials that are being built up layer by layer. And like laser sintering, the process involves applying what HP calls an “energy source” to fuse the materials.

As for materials, HP’s printer will initially be able to print in a wide range of plastics. However, the company has said that it plans to expand the printer’s capabilities to include ceramics and metals.

I’m a bit skeptical that this tech will be able to successfully compete with direct metal laser sintering --the most widely used metal 3D printing tech – and electron beam melting when it comes to printing metals.
my comment - if HP has trouble competing with laser based metal 3DP , it will have even more trouble competing with EBM based metal 3DP.
Not to mention that they can’t even build very good printers using liquid inks. I long ago stopped using HP inkjet printers because of clogging and third rate software . Their PC are very much a commodity to me.

http://www.exone.com/Resources/Technology-Overview/What-is-B…

any kind of binder jet printing competes with lasers using metals with relatively low melting point. And ExOne hasn’t competed well.

Note titanium has a higher melting point than the metal that presumably could be used in the machine . Though maybe ceramics are a possibility. in any case going against the laser based 3DP market makes a lot more sense, that is the far larger market and a lot easier to do.

I do not regard HP as an Arcam competitor.
Arcam addresses a niche market , but a niche that could be a lot bigger in the future.

The vast majority of the uses of metals are well served by existing technologies…If all you want is a manhole cover, cast iron works just as well today as it did 100 years ago.

http://www.calphad.com/titanium-aluminum.html
http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/127716…

Arcam keeps getting new patents, 2 published this month alone Notable is the broadness of the language

from one

“producing 3 dimensional objects … layering powdery material…which can be solidified by irradiating with a high energy beam”

so it includes metals and electron beams but is not limited to them.

so it includes metals and electron beams but is not limited to them.

Notably there has been a lot of talk about the possibility of a machine that used both electron beams and lasers as a way to provide a higher level of finish.