3D Print Complete Electronic Prototypes in a Few Hours?

3D printing functional prototypes of integrated systems in only a few hours? That's the promise of a new project led by the University of Texas at El Paso.

The project, part of the third wave of 3D printing (3DP) and additive manufacturing (AM) projects recently funded by America Makes, aims to develop a low-cost industrial multi3D system for 3D electronics manufacturing that can efficiently print both the design's mechanical structure and its associated electronics.

Instead of designing and fabricating parts separately and then assembling them, the proposed system would print fully integrated, working electromechanical prototypes within a few hours using Stratasys' Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technology. Project partner Draper Laboratory will contribute its electromechanical systems expertise, which has been developed during biomedical engineering programs for commercial, government agency, and defense customers. Other partners include Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Honeywell.

According to a project summary:

Public/private institute America Makes, aka the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII), has recently funded a total of nine applied R&D projects, several of which we've been telling you about. The institute will grant $8 million, matched by $11 million from the project teams.

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The third project call, which came in February, focused design, materials, process, value chain, and genome—the five technical focus areas of the institute's technology roadmap, which was revealed at the 2015 AM3D conference and exhibition in Boston, organized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

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Many of the projects in this third wave concern software and design issues, and work toward formulating design rules and best practices, as well as more integrated software and processes. For example, a study led by the University of Pittsburgh aims to develop parametric designs of functional support structures for metal alloy feedstocks and codify design rules for support structures used in Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS), an EOS method, including optimal part orientation and designing optimized support structures. GE Global Research is leading a project that aims to develop open architecture control systems for powder bed fusion AM. And the University of Notre Dame will direct a project that will look at metal powder reuse to lower costs while retaining material quality for orthopedic materials.

You can find the entire projects list and brief descriptions here.

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Ann R. Thryft is senior technology editor, materials & assembly, for Design News. She's been writing about manufacturing- and electronics-related technologies for 27 years, covering manufacturing materials & processes, alternative energy, and robotics. In the past, she's also written about machine vision and all kinds of communications.