Earlier this year, we at CATI announced that we were to become a reseller for Nano Dimension and installed our very own Dragonfly in early April.
You can read about it here on our official site for some good background info.
What I want to talk about today is a little more deep dive from the technical and mechanical perspective of the machine including some basic operational theory, how it contrasts and compares to similar technologies, and finally a little bit about the power of the software.
The Nano Dimension Dragonfly relies on two separate heads to extrude two different resins; a conductive material for tracing and a dielectric material for simulating industry-standard FR4. The dielectric material is similar to our Polyjet machines in that it can cure via UV light. The dielectric material is cured by a separate thermal heating lamp on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Some of you reading may be familiar with Polyjet technology and know that it uses a UV lamp to cure the material a little at a time until it becomes fully rigid. The way the machine holds material is by using sonic resonance in order to keep it static. With Nano, the machine actually relies on a peristaltic pump to keep the material continuously flowing. This means that the machine can drop material whenever it is needed and the head does not need to be filled. Each nozzle can be individually controlled in the software as well for ultra-precise printing.
Unlike other machines, the rail system on which the platen sits moves in the X direction, while the “Group” (Y/Z combined) moves on its own. Because of the small Z footprint and the fact that the machine doesn’t need to move too much in Y, but extremely precise in X, this rail system works very well and relies on electromagnets for incredible and meticulous accuracy.
Nano Dimension is taking the PCB industry to bold new places in 2019 and beyond. We are confident that this disruptive technology will help designers, engineers, and fabricators break the bonds and barriers of yester-year and move forward to exciting new solutions. We are proud to be their partners.
For more information, please contact us!
Robb Lauer
Application Engineer
Computer Aided Technology, LLC
