Optomec Showcases Mass Production 3D Printing Technology at Printed Electronics Conference

Optomec is showcasing its Aerosol Jet 3D printing technology used for mass production of handheld consumer electronic devices at the IDTechEx conference in Europe. Examples of smart electronic devices printed by several Aerosol Jet customers will be on display in the Optomec booth, along with a video showing mass production of 3D printed electronics at the LITE-ON Mobile Mechanical SBG factory in Guangzhou, China. The IDTechEx conference will be held April 27-28 at the Estrel Convention Center in Berlin, Germany. Optomec is in booth F12.
 
Also, Henrik Johansson, senior manager, Technology Development Antennas at LITE-ON, will deliver a presentation at the conference titled “Printing of 3D Shaped Conductive Traces in Mass Production” at 8:30 on Thursday in Room 2. In his talk, Johansson will present the challenges and solutions to bring this process into 24×7 mass production as well as explain the benefits of this novel production process.
 
Optomec Aerosol Jet technology is used by a wide variety of industries to directly print functional electronic circuitry and components onto low-temperature, non-planar substrates, without the need for masks, screens, or plating. Optomec solutions for printed electronics are based on its industry proven Aerosol Jet technology for printing conformal electronic circuitry and components onto 3D structures.
 
The Aerosol Jet process utilizes an innovative aerodynamic focusing technique to collimate a dense mist of material-laden micro droplets into a tightly controlled beam to print features as small as 10 microns or as large as several millimeters in a single pass. A wide assortment of materials can be printed with the Aerosol Jet system including conductive nano-particle inks, polymers and epoxies, along with dielectrics, ceramics, and bio-active materials. For more information on Optomec solutions for 3D printed electronics click here
 
In addition, Mike O’Reilly, director of Aerosol director product management, will give a presentation titled “Fully Printed Conformal Antennas and Sensors on 3D Plastic, Ceramic, and Metallic Substrates” at 14:50 on Thursday in Hall C. In his presentation, O’Reilly will discuss the growing demand for antennas and sensors directly integrated into products including smartphones, wearables, structural components and IoT related products. Conformal 3D antennas and sensors using a direct write approach enables higher fidelity monitoring of structures, faster product design and prototyping, while also broadening the choice of substrate materials.
 
Also, Ken Vartanian, VP of marketing at Optomec, will give a presentation titled “A Hybrid Approach to Accelerate Adoption of Metal 3D Printing” at 14:00 on Thursday in Room 4. In his presentation Vartanian will discuss how the high cost to acquire metal additive manufacturing systems, along with other factors, are barriers to industrial adoption of this technology. He will then present progress made by an Optomec-led team that reduces capital acquisition costs by more than 50% by packaging LENS metal 3D printing technology into modular print engine for integration into CNC machine tools, work cells and robots. For more information on Optomec additive manufacturing solutions, click here.