Sigma Labs has been putting out new press releases fairly regularly, normally announcing new contracts for projects with large OEMs to enhance their in-process quality control for industrial 3D printing. This latest announcement, however, brings the company closer to its goal of ensuring quality metal prints for the larger manufacturing supply chain. Sigma Labs Inc. has just signed an agreement with Honeywell International to use the company’s Advanced Manufacturing Engineering Center as a beta test site for its new DEFORM software.
The company will be using the defense contractor’s Advanced Manufacturing Engineering Center to test out its PrintRite3D® DEFORM™ software module to verify part geometry in metal 3D printing. Sigma Labs CEO, Mark Cola, explains how the new contract aids its mission to improve quality control for industrial 3D printing, “We believe that the signing of this Honeywell agreement, along with previous agreements with major North American Aerospace customers, are significant steps in achieving our 2014 development goals. Further, we believe that following, and as a result of, beta testing at Honeywell over the next several months, a product launch for our PrintRite3D® DEFORM™ software will be accelerated. Lastly, we believe that our complete suite of PrintRite3D® software for metal additive manufacturing would enable OEMs like Honeywell to more quickly achieve process certification with enhanced process reliability.”
PrintRite3D and its new metal additive manufacturing module, along with such projects as the 3D print preview software in the works at 3DSIM, will bring much needed repeatability and predictability to the world of industrial AM. As it stands, 3D printing often involves a lot of guesswork to anticipate the potential changes made in an object’s physical properties while it’s being fabricated. When it comes to industrial metal 3D printing, the stakes may be even higher, as OEMs use costly machines to produce components for jet engines and the like. Sigma Labs hopes to remove the guesswork with a system to monitor prints while they’re being made. To learn more about it and the company’s other projects, Sigma Labs has made a presentation available online for the next 90 days.
Source: MarketWatch
