3D Printing of Electronics Laboratory
Goddard’s 3D Printing of Electronics lab develops custom technological solutions for future NASA missions, enhancing partnerships with leading research institutions in academia and industry, and enables an agile project posture for current spaceflight projects by prototyping boards early and iterating. We accomplish this via two prongs:
1.Research: applications for spaceflight projects with unique needs
2.Rapid prototyping: helping low-risk missions prototyping boards and other electronics early, enabling earlier testing and addressing design flaws up front
How is this capability unique?
There are many groups at Goddard that 3D print mechanical structures, but our group prints custom circuitry and devices and can print circuits and sensors on curved surfaces as needed, saving size, weight and power (SWaP). While other research groups print circuits, ours focuses on printing for spaceflight missions and rapid prototyping for mission success. This includes fast designs for basic testing, as well as long term research into custom inks and custom designs developed for unique spaceflight mission needs, as well as spaceflight specific materials testing.
What’s available?
Botfactory SV2 Professional
•Min. line width: 200 μm
•Conducting and Insulating ink
•Up to 6 layers in a single print
•Pick and Place
•Reflow soldering built in
•Great for iterating early board designs; test early and often, eliminating design flaws early and inexpensively!
Voltera NOVA
•Min. line width: 100 μm
•Conducting and Insulating ink
•Up to 6 layers in a single print
•Direct Ink Write, 3-axis printing
•Prints customized inks
•Multiple, modular print heads
3D Flexible Tabletop
•Min. line width: 100 μm
•Additive and subtractive capabilities (fine feature milling, laser cutting)
•Can also print ceramics, including ceramic structures for PV and battery applications
•Direct Ink Write, 3-axis printing
•Prints conductive, insulating, ceramic, custom inks
•Multiple print head controls
