It was a pleasure speaking with you. I did confirm that all of the products listed below carry the Pyrogel 6650 material. As I mentioned in our phone call this material is specifically called out on the Honeywell drawings and we are stuck dealing with a suspect supplier. Here is a brief synopsis of the history:
- In 2014 TSI did a random test on the material supplied from Aspen Aerogels and it failed Thermal conductivity. We raised the flag to Honeywell that we did not trust the supplier that they were mandating we use.
- HWL/TSI jointly developed a spec that Aspen needed to test the material to going forward. It involved an outside lab.
- Since this time Apsen has raised the price of the material 100% and increased the lead time from 10 to 16 weeks.
- In 2016 Aspen said they would not make the material any longer and would allow us to buy 1 more time so HWL could research alternate materials. TSI purchased 1 year worth of material
- In 2017 we were running low and asked HWL what they decided, nothing had been done therefore we approached Aspen and they would run 1 more order to buy more time for HWL. We bout another 2 years then.
- In June of 2019 we were running low so we asked HWL again what to do. They contacted Aspen and they decided to continue making the material going forward but wanted to remove the testing criteria HWL/TSI agreed upon. This raised a red flag to TSI and HWL and it has been a topic of discussion in the HWL engineering group until about 2 weeks ago.
- Sept 2019 HWL engineering said the testing requirement had to stay so Aspen needed to send the material out for testing with a 4 week lead time.
- TSI has been trying to get HWL to change this material since 2014.