Our team worked on two different IPC task groups; AME Coupons, and the Acceptability of AME Specification. The team developed and printed test coupons with IPC task group members. During regular meetings, the task group reviewed the coupon designs, performed necessary modifications, and worked with IPC to plan future courses of action.  

To date, a suite of 11 different test coupons have been developed to validate AME properties on various equipment types. Some of the factors assessed are: SMT + THT attachment​, Layer bond strength​, Electrical characterization of embedded components (coax, twisted & differential pairs, 3D traces)​, Conductive peel strength​, Moisture and insulation resistance (MIR) ​, Thermal Stress​, and Z-axis registration. Some of these are shown in Figures 1 & 2 below.  

Soon, the task force will be reviewing test methods for printed electronics and the Acceptability of AME Specification. Following the review, documents will be released to other IPC task groups and the public for comments and critique. 

The post Additively Manufactured Electronics (AME): 3D Printed appeared first on NJII.

The Defense team is excited to share the arrival and installation of the Stratasys F3300 this past December 2024! It joins the current fleet of F900, the Fortus 450 mc, and the F370 CR in our Stratasys cell. Stratasys is an industry leader in Additive Manufacturing (AM) who invented Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) in 1989. With their first commercial 3D Printer being released in 1992, they have decades of experience and continue to advance their technology. 

The F3300 boasts several improvements including higher throughput resulting in faster print times, a streamlined user interaction including auto calibration for reduced time to start, and, most importantly, a multi-head arrangement.  The multi-head arrangement allows for redundant extruders that reduce the risk of a failed build when a nozzle goes down providing increased uptime, as well as the capability of combining diverse print resolutions and materials within a single build! 

We already have a number of applications for this new capability, and we look forward to discovering even more. If you’d like to learn more about our technology or materials, please reach out to Landing360@NJII.com.

The post Advancing Manufacturing: COMET Initiative Welcomes the Stratasys F3300 appeared first on NJII.

Over the past decade, DEVCOM-AC and New Jersey Institute for Technology (NJIT) researchers have relied on a concept called volumetric energy density (VED)  to help set boundaries on which parameters to change to optimize the density of a new metal. The VED relies on the laser power (Watts), laser scan speed (mm/s), hatch distance (mm) and layer thickness (mm) to calculate how much energy is going into melting the metal alloy within the AM machine, shown below.

Within the VED construct, if a researcher is limited to having only 1 laser power setting it is still possible for them to vary the VED by changing the laser scan speed (v) or hatch distance (h).  This helps to increase or decrease energy within a certain volume using available equipment.

Once the variations in process parameters have been selected for the design of experiments (DOE), building parts can begin.  To save money on powder, it is recommended that a few small cubes (~15mm – 20mm) be built in various points on the build plate to show the dependency of location.

Once the cubes have been produced and removed from the build plate, obvious defects such as delamination should be noted. Typically, but not always, if the process parameters do not work well for small cubes they will not work well for larger parts.  However, for cubes that remain intact more investigation needs to be done to determine which process parameters produced cubes with the highest relative density.  Density can be measured using the Archimedes Principle or by visually inspecting polished metallurgical specimens and checking for porosity.

Running this DOE several times can confirm the consistency of the results.  Once a researcher is satisfied, the next step would be to produce larger specimens which are properly heat treated to commence other physical and mechanical testing. 

Interested in learning more about how to use Volumetric Energy Density for AM process optimization with NJII Defense?  Contact one of our experts today!

References

Jelis, E., Hespos, M.R., Feurer, M. et al. Development of Laser Powder Bed Fusion Processing Parameters for Aermet 100 Powder. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 32, 7195–7203 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-022-07638-y

The post New Metal Alloys for Additive Manufacturing: Optimizing Process Parameters for Powder Bed Fusion Using Volumetric Energy Density appeared first on NJII.

Q. I’d love to start by hearing a little bit about your background. How did you get started at NJIT, and how did your role evolve to where it is today? 

A. Yeah, absolutely. About 8-and-a-half years ago, I got an opportunity to be a 3D-printer technician in a physics lab. I was wrapping up my master’s in Science, Technology, and Public Policy and got this opportunity to start collaborating with a lab that was working on a handheld multispectral camera. And this newfangled technology that was just becoming accessible to consumers, 3D-Printing, was on the market, and some of the professors thought it would be a good idea to use it to build housing and kind of rapidly prototype ideas. I had done a little bit of engineering in my undergrad; I didn’t actually finish my engineering degree, I got more of a general studies bachelor’s. But I had enough CAD background that I picked it up quickly, and next thing I knew I was offered a position in the lab. I worked my way up there, turned it into an additive manufacturing lab itself; we founded something we call the ADLAB, short for additive. And it was a way to get going while the Makerspace was getting set up. They had a much bigger goal in mind, so it took a little while for them to become accessible to the rest of the community at NJIT. So, in the meantime, we just bought a few printers and got to work. But a lot of the funding for that lab came from Picatinny Arsenal and the US army. And so I started to get more involved in the grant writing and the reporting, and business development with the army. Then I got to meet Bill Marshall, and he and I took a liking to each other, and I became his Chief of Staff. Long story short, here we are. 

Q. Did you always have an interest in additive manufacturing or did that develop over time? 

A. No, I mean it definitely developed over time, in part because I’m old enough that for much of my life I didn’t know it was a thing! Now I know people who’ve been in the industry for as long as I’ve been alive. I’ve been lucky enough to meet people that were working on 3D printing 30-plus years ago. But it was a really niche field then; million dollar machines that took days for – what we would now look at as – mediocre parts. It was about a decade ago now that the ‘consumer revolution’ for 3D printing became a thing, because a lot of patents expired, so cheaper machines were able to get on the market, and it allowed people to get access to it. And now, I hire people that have been doing 3D printing since they were kids. We actually have an intern this summer, I think he’s in his early 20s; he’s been 3D printing for 10 years. He’s been in 3D printing for longer than I have! 

But I have always been interested in engineering. I went to school initially for mechanical engineering and learned that I wasn’t well suited for the daily work of being an engineer, but I like being around the projects. At the time I was coaching high school basketball and track & field, and I’ve always really liked building teams and helping to facilitate teamwork and collaboration. It took me a while to figure out how to plug that all together, but I joke that nowadays I basically coach engineering. 

Q. What is something about additive manufacturing that people might not know about? 

A. One of the things that we work on out here are 3D printed, additively manufactured electronics. There are people in the industry that may be working for polymer, plastic, 3D printing companies, that aren’t even aware that 3D printed electronics are really a thing. So it’s a pretty early-stage part of the industry. The machines are still very temperamental and getting them to work effectively is still an uphill battle. But I think the promise that they represent – combining the ability to print plastic, metal, ceramics, and electronics – it’s still decades out, but the idea of the Star Trek replicator… maybe! 

Q. The COMET program – How and when did it originate? How has the program developed over the years? 

A. So it’s kind of tough to pick the exact point, but Bill and I were having lunch with one of our army collaborators near Picatinny at the Rockaway Mall. We were looking at the empty Sears building, and we thought “geez, wouldn’t it be cool if we could repurpose this wasted retail space as an additive manufacturing center where we do workforce development, and educate people on the possibilities of the technology”, everything we’re doing now at COMET. 

It was right before COVID that we had the idea. We ended up talking to Sears during COVID. It was actually becoming a site where they were doing COVID tests for the state. They had a date where the state was going to get out of there, and we got to the 11^th hour of signing the lease with them to take over the space. But at the last moment, Sears realized “You guys aren’t doing COVID relief. What are you doing?” And they raised the rent on us 10x as we were about to sign the lease. Little bit of a blessing in disguise because I think it was 10 times as big, and it’s been hard enough managing 20,000 square feet let alone 200,000.  

So maybe a month or two later, we were lucky enough to find the listing of the building we’re in now. We rushed out there, basically started negotiating to put an offer in that day, and thankfully we did because the next day 5 more groups wanted to take over this building.  

So, we were able to find that location, but a lot of it was built off work we had done on campus. I ran an internship on campus for four years working on robotics, showing off 3D printing and integrating edge computing into it. That was developed on campus, but in a 2000 square foot room with a couple few-thousand-dollar 3D printers. So, the opportunity to carry those lessons forward into this state-of-the-art facility has been really amazing. 

Q. Where do you see COMET going over the next 5 or so years? Are there any specific prospects that excite you? 

A. One of the things that’s really exciting is the design studio that we’re starting. The Army has worked with us to build out this facility, but they want a developed workforce that knows how to use the equipment. The best way I know how to do that is to put people on the equipment and get them to work. But working on real projects for people that matter, not just toys and made-up things. And so, sometimes that’s in support of the army, but increasingly we’ve had the opportunity to work with startups and small businesses in the state. There are some state programs that help with funding, and other companies are fortunate enough to have cash flow already that they can support this.  

Our facility is well suited to prototyping and low-rate initial production. It’s what we call a high-mix, low-volume manufacturing facility, and I think Mike Van Ter Sluis from NJII had done a study a few years ago showing that a facility like this would be an accelerator to innovation in the state. But it’s not really a money maker on its own. So, the fact that we were able to leverage the resources to do the defense application, but then have excess capacity on the machines, means that now we can be a design studio to help develop those MVPs (minimum viable products), get their ideas out of their head, off napkin sketches, and into the hands of potential investors. We have a pipeline of really great talent from NJIT with their industrial design program, let alone all the engineers and scientists, and so we can support industry in that way. 

These sorts of facilities make sense to address regional workforce needs and industrial needs. We have Northwest Jersey taken care of; we’ve got students commuting over an hour from here. But that’s starting to stretch how far the reach should be. So, figuring out how we might deploy some additional sites to target other industries is something we would be excited to do. And the figuring out how we can network them for defense and for the civilian world, having distributed capabilities like this, so that if a tornado or hurricane comes through or an earthquake or if something more malicious happens, you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Figuring out how to network manufacturing capabilities like this is something else we’re working on. 

Learn more about the COMET program here.  

Q. NJII’s Defense Division works with both private companies and public institutions like the US military. How have those partnerships helped lift our projects and programs, and do you find that these relationships become stronger over time? 

A. Absolutely. Another way I could have answered the question of “how did comet become a thing?” is through a decade of relationship building on my behalf, that built on decades of Bill’s relationship building. Nothing that we do happens overnight, and especially in this space, it feels like it’s built on trust with the people. We have very good relationships with Picatinny Arsenal, but also at the joint base and increasingly with the other branches of the DoD. All of this really relies on working with industry as well. Our role, the way we see it, is as an integrator between the academic efforts that happen at NJIT or other universities, the industrial partners we have, and the DoD, and kind of aligning those interests so that we get the most bang for our buck when we work together. 

Another thing that we did before COMET was the ADAPT program, and I was the project manager on that. We brought together a dozen small businesses, about a dozen faculty members from NJIT and a couple people from the University of Delaware to work with Picatinny Arsenal on some interesting technology and try to accelerate the development from the lab to get it in the field as soon as possible. And on that, it was really built around in team building. So, if you’re a big prime, like Raytheon or a Booz Allen, you might have divisions that can all work together to build final products, or you have people in your supply chain. These were small businesses, though, that kind of tackled one slice of a product on their own. So, we had, a battery company, software, a 3D printing electronics company, an antenna company, and separate from that a testing company. So together, if they’re properly aligned, they can do the development that typically only primes could do. 

It’s also been kind of the inspiration for our internship. We had 20 interns that had 12 different majors working together last year. We tried to teach and expose the interns to that way of working while they’re young, so that they can learn these lessons early and really apply them through their whole career. My goal is for them to have fun this summer, and if you don’t find this work fun, you’re on the wrong job. 

Q. Working daily operations at Landing 360, what are the most common challenges that come about on a day-to-day basis, and what kind of work do you find yourself enjoying the most? 

A. We’ve been in this building for over two years now and it doesn’t really feel like any one day is like the other. We’ll have days where we all have to chip in, clean up the facility, put furniture together and receive equipment. Recently we hosted a meeting for the state effort around the CHIPS Act Notice of Funding Opportunity 3 Response, with ideation sessions with high level people from the DoD. Then it’s teaching 20 year olds how to do 3D printing or giving a tour of the space to FIRST Robotics Clubs in high school. One of the things that I think makes it so exciting is how varied the work is. And since we kind of view ourselves as that systems integrator, we need to understand what other people in this space are doing to properly align those efforts.  

And so that’s really fun, but also challenging. It requires kind of a high level strategic vision of what we’re trying to do and merging the priorities of NJIT and NJII and DEVCOM Armaments Center; keeping all of those interests in mind while then executing tactically day-to-day. But one thing that’s cool about additive manufacturing is you can get your ideas out of your head and into your hands quickly at relatively low cost. So, you’re able to kind of try something, assess it and reiterate. For better or worse, we have applied that methodology to just about everything we’re doing. 

Q. You are an employee of both NJII and NJIT. Does this affect your job significantly in any way? Do you find yourself working more with one than the other? 

A. Yeah, it does. One of the things that’s funny about this is that I supervise NJII staff members and employees, but because I’m actually paid by NJIT, I don’t always know the processes that you have to go through. Like, I’ve never actually filled out a timesheet or gotten a paycheck from NJII. But the benefit of being between both organizations is that I really understand the processes on both sides of the house; who to talk to, what portals to access, what forms to fill out, how “the sausage” is made on both sides. So, I’m able to get things to effectively move back and forth. There’s a huge benefit to us being able to act as an academic effort at times, put it in grants, and engage with people that way. Then at times move a lot faster. Being able to engage with the government and industry at the speed that they operate at as NJII, but then also leverage the academic resources of NJIT, it really opens up a lot of opportunities. 

Q. What do you enjoy most about working for NJII? 

Oh, my favorite thing about my job is how many interesting people I get to work with. I get to work with young people at the beginning of their career. I often joke with them or other people I’m talking to: They don’t realize what’s supposed to be hard, and I put problems in front of them that I think are damn near impossible, and they just breeze through them in a day. I also put problems in front of them that I think are trivial and it takes them a week to figure out, so it’s always exciting to see what’s going to be challenging on that front. But then I also get to work with people from the state or the federal government, industry, etc. Additive manufacturing is a pretty small industry at this point, so it’s amazing how many people I know in that space. 

And recently, Bill arranged for us to lead an ideation session at Fort Gregg Adams on advanced manufacturing and how the Army will use it in the next upcoming decades. I was lucky enough to actually lead that third day ideation session and report out to several acting generals. That was just an amazing opportunity.  

The post NJII Employee Spotlight: Sam Gatley, Deputy Director of NJII’s Defense Division appeared first on NJII.

Upon the completion of the Prusa assemblies, we were split into four teams for a weeklong design sprint, where we were challenged to leverage the capabilities of the new Prusa printers to design engaging and print friendly tchotchkes representing the COMET Project. Each team included engineers and designers with diverse experiences and knowledge, who quickly had to collaborate to achieve a final design. Designs from the four teams included a drone kit card that displayed last year’s final project, a gear driven rocket launcher, a clicker coin, and a modular fidget tank (all four designs can be seen below). We all learned new skills from this one-week design sprint, gaining insights into how to properly brainstorm, collaborate, rapidly prototype, and present our design process in a professional setting. In the two weeks following the handout project, we were placed into new teams and tasked with designing remote-controlled vehicles that could traverse an obstacle course designed to simulate a jungle environment, which served as a locomotion study for the final project.

We were given an Arduino-mega starter kit and small DC motors to complete the project. Teams were quickly faced with challenges of electronics issues, scope creep, and time constraints. While the vehicles may not have perfectly traversed the course, it made for an effective learning exercise to better design solutions with given constraints. In the remaining time of the internship, all nineteen interns started working on the final project. The prompt, provided by engineers at DEVCOM AC, Picatinny Arsenal, asked us to design a design a mesh network of an unmanned ground vehicle and aerial drone to conduct reconnaissance in dense jungle terrain, where the aerial drone serves as a range extender for the ground vehicle when communication is not possible through the foliage. Taking maximum advantage of our new collaboration skills, we went through a weeklong research and brainstorm phase to better define the prompt, gather insight into the terrain and climate the network would operate in, and agree on a design. Moving forward, we created internal deadlines and a Gannt chart before splitting into sub teams based on areas of expertise: software, ground vehicle, drone, and electronics. We have been meeting often making sure we are staying on time, ordering the proper parts, avoiding scope creep, and staying on the same page as we work toward the final design. We look forward to using COMET’s advanced manufacturing capabilities to help create our final product and we’re very excited to present our final design to stakeholders at the end of the summer. If you’d like to learn more about COMET and the work we did this summer, you can view the COMET overview page on NJII’s website.

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