3D printing

AugustusMinimus

Just wondering does anyone own stocks in the 3D printing sector ?

I've read article after article at this stage saying how the industry is likely to take off in 2014 or 2015 with cheap 3D printers appearing in the high street and the like.

From what I've read, the two companies to invest in are:

3D Systems Corporation (NYSE:DDD)
Stratasys ((NASDAQ:SSYS)

As you can imagine, both stocks have made huge gains since the start of 2013. Can such growth continue. Anyone have anything bad to say about this area ? Any other notables I should be looking at ?

Stratasys for instance has P/E of 215. Am I took late to the party ?

arrowloopboy

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Just wondering does anyone own stocks in the 3D printing sector ?

I've read article after article at this stage saying how the industry is likely to take off in 2014 or 2015 with cheap 3D printers appearing in the high street and the like.

From what I've read, the two companies to invest in are:

3D Systems Corporation (NYSE:DDD)
Stratasys ((NASDAQ:SSYS)

As you can imagine, both stocks have made huge gains since the start of 2013. Can such growth continue. Anyone have anything bad to say about this area ? Any other notables I should be looking at ?

Stratasys for instance has P/E of 215. Am I took late to the party ?

Had a look into this about 6/8 mts ago,the Chinese are supplying ready to go 3D printers for about 800 quid,they've jumped on the bandwagon big time ,basically this is what put me off.Its still a very new technology ,I might have a look into a ''Western'' company making high end reliable stuff.

tommylimerick

I am invested in ddd only a couple of days was going to start a thread myself
hope I am not too late but will sell if falls even a small bit
think with any trend follower you just jump in and think later

spideog7

3D printing is relatively old tech, in fact some of the recent stir about it is that some of the underlying patents protecting aspects of the technology are expiring. It has begun to mature in recent years though, its much faster, the resolution has improved significantly, there are more materials being made available and the CAD software is better.

Industries that use 3D printing have been using it for years and will continue to use it for prototype development but it cannot and likely will not ever compete with any of the other mass manufacturing technologies that are out there, there is little or no economy of scale with 3D printing.

Will it ever go mainstream like your everyday inkjet printer? The entry point has been lowered, but mostly thanks to companies like Shapeways who have designed very clever user friendly websites to allow hobbyists to relatively cheaply print on industrial ($100K) machines.

It might become desktop technology someday but I think that will hinge on the software rather than the printing tech, it's a lot more difficult to create a printable part than a text document (although significantly easier than creating a mouldable part).

It has it's virtues, it can make physical parts that are almost impossible to manufacture in any other way and it's relatively fast for a manufacturing process. It might be good for hard to find spare parts, custom designs or unmouldable parts; all of these are kind of niche though, it can't compete with mass manufacturing like injection moulding.

IMO it has a long way to come to move out of the hobbyist/prototyping scene onto the desk of your average joe and the hype is already priced into the big players. Although on the other hand the recent hype has pumped a lot of money into R&D.

So basically it sits in a niche of; expensive very low volume production and hobbyists/developers, is there enough growth potential there? Or better yet can it get out of that nook?

AtomicHorror

spideog7 wrote: »

3D printing is relatively old tech, in fact some of the recent stir about it is that some of the underlying patents protecting aspects of the technology are expiring. It has begun to mature in recent years though, its much faster, the resolution has improved significantly, there are more materials being made available and the CAD software is better.

Industries that use 3D printing have been using it for years and will continue to use it for prototype development but it cannot and likely will not ever compete with any of the other mass manufacturing technologies that are out there, there is little or no economy of scale with 3D printing.

Will it ever go mainstream like your everyday inkjet printer? The entry point has been lowered, but mostly thanks to companies like Shapeways who have designed very clever user friendly websites to allow hobbyists to relatively cheaply print on industrial ($100K) machines.

It might become desktop technology someday but I think that will hinge on the software rather than the printing tech, it's a lot more difficult to create a printable part than a text document (although significantly easier than creating a mouldable part).

It has it's virtues, it can make physical parts that are almost impossible to manufacture in any other way and it's relatively fast for a manufacturing process. It might be good for hard to find spare parts, custom designs or unmouldable parts; all of these are kind of niche though, it can't compete with mass manufacturing like injection moulding.

IMO it has a long way to come to move out of the hobbyist/prototyping scene onto the desk of your average joe and the hype is already priced into the big players. Although on the other hand the recent hype has pumped a lot of money into R&D.

So basically it sits in a niche of; expensive very low volume production and hobbyists/developers, is there enough growth potential there? Or better yet can it get out of that nook?

Wouldn't widespread digital distribution of 3-d files compatible with such machines reduce the importance of user skill and UI? The average user doesn't want to design engine parts, they want to print one someone else has designed. That and a mug with their name on it. Minimal customisation. A replicator and not a creativity tool (though the "creativity" spin will doubtless appeal in marketing).

An iTunes for object files, is what I see, with a competing open source movement of more variable quality files distributed via non-commercial channels such as torrents.