| Shapeways materials for antenna substrate [message #44080] Wed, 15 February 2012 13:44 UTC |
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Hello all,
I want to create a printed antenna on a suitable shapeway substrate. Does anyone have an idea if it is possible to create a radiating antenna on the materials provided by shapeway?
Thanks.
Mayur
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| Re: Shapeways materials for antenna substrate [message #44081 is a reply to message #44080 ] Wed, 15 February 2012 13:54 UTC |
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Hi Mayur,
Welcome to Shapeways! 
I haven't a clue about the workings of an antenna, so I'm not sure if the materials would be able to act as an antenna, but if it is the base shape you're needing for doing post production work on to make a functioning antenna then, yes, just about anything you can imagine can be printed.
Paul
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| Re: Shapeways materials for antenna substrate [message #44096 is a reply to message #44090 ] Wed, 15 February 2012 17:02 UTC |
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An example: the technical name for WSF is Nylon 12.
If you look that up on the web, you will find:
http://www.goodfellow.com/A/Polyamide-Nylon-12.html
But, this doesn't give you the dielectric constant at different frequency settings. It may be available somewhere.. you'd just have to research it deeper.
Patience, Persistance, Politeness - the 3Ps will help us get us to Perfect Printed Products
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| Re: Shapeways materials for antenna substrate [message #44280 is a reply to message #44096 ] Tue, 21 February 2012 18:31 UTC |
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I have characterized all of the materials provided from shapeways and they are all very lossy with a loss tangent of at least 0.05 at 1 GHz. The white, strong, and flexible is particularly bad because of its extreme porosity. Depending on humidity its dielectric loss tangent varies from at a minimum (after desiccating the sample for 72 hours) of 0.07 up to 0.2 after sitting out in an ambient relative humidity of 35% for 24 hours.
If you do move forward with your idea don't forget that most cyanoacrylate based adhesives are stupidly lossy in the RF-microwave bands. Make sure you choose an rf grade adhesive.
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| Re: Shapeways materials for antenna substrate [message #44304 is a reply to message #44280 ] Wed, 22 February 2012 08:43 UTC |
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Hello all,
Thanks for sharing the valuable information. I will be testing a micorstrip antenna on WSF antenna soon. Will share my results!
@Tamert What do you mean by RF grade adhesive?
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