
DragonFly LDM – Lights-Out Digital Manufacturing System (3D Electronics Printer) - peter_d_sherman
https://www.nano-di.com/dragonfly-ldm-3d-printer
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peter_d_sherman
>"The DragonFly LDM™ is fitted with two printheads, one for

 _nano-Silver conductive ink_

and the other for

 _dielectric polymer ink_.

This set-up allows the DragonFly LDM™ to concurrently print with both advanced
inks in a single print job."

Conductive ink + dielectric ink = the ability to print semiconductors and
other electronic circuits...

~~~
alted
Soon! But not quite yet.

Like deelowe said, for now, this DragonFly is limited to simple
conductors/insulators(dielectrics), which means fancy 3D PCBs (or embedded
antennas---see their RFID paper). Transistors, using semiconductors, are
significantly trickier.

But special inkjet printers can actually print transistors (e.g., [1])! This
is very exciting for the obvious reasons---integrate this with a
DragonFly/PolyJet 3D printer/etc. to print complete electronc devices.
However, the printers have to use different materials available in ink forms
instead of silicon, and even the best are limited to ~20um feature sizes due
to ink dispensing difficulties (vs. 0.01um current transistor sizes), so
they're still in the research stage.

[1] Grubb et al., "Inkjet Printing of High Performance Transistors with Micron
Order Chemically Set Gaps", Nature,
[https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01391-2](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01391-2)

~~~
yourapostasy
So could I potentially combine this with a resin 3D printer, and make macro-
sized molycirc-style, solid-chunks-of-electronics? If so, this would be really
interesting to make individually-unique, ORWL-style computers that are a
single solid chunk of completely randomly-placed 3D circuitry, embedded in a
riot of colors of epoxy. With a set of completely randomly-routed 100um wires
interlaced throughout the 3D volume to detect physical penetration. And if you
could control the sputtering of the nanoparticles, then that wire could be
made more hard to detect in random spots. No maintenance, but that wouldn't be
on the list of requirements.

------
mechagodzilla
This looks very interesting, but they don't seem to have the minimum line /
space widths anywhere.

~~~
alted
Trace/space width: 100um/125um

Build volume: 200x200x3mm

Accuracy: 1um

Conductor: silver nanoparticle ink (can't find quantitative conductivity, but
similar silver inks often reach a very respectable ≈1e-5 ohm-cm after heating)

Insulator (dielectric): polymer, properties similar to FR4 (dielectric
constant ≈3)

The system is similar to the very impressive PolyJet 3D printers [2] (which
can't print conductors yet, but can do multiple materials and colors). The
DragonFly layer thickness isn't mentioned, but by analogy with the PolyJet, is
probably variable down to 10um or so.

The information's in the DragonFly system brochure downloadable from [1] with
contact information.

[1] [https://www.nano-di.com/nano-dimension-papers-ebooks](https://www.nano-
di.com/nano-dimension-papers-ebooks) [2] [https://www.stratasys.com/polyjet-
technology](https://www.stratasys.com/polyjet-technology)

