High volume production printing of 3D antennas
Optomec, a rapidly growing, global supplier of production grade additive manufacturing systems for 3D printed metals and electronics, has announced a successful second quarter with a growth of 70%.
Bookings for the company’s patented LENS 3D Printers for metal components and Aerosol Jet Systems for printed electronics, were up 45% for the first half of the year compared to 2013 with a surge of 71% in the second quarter.
Optomec can count sales of the LENS Print Engine, an open architecture machine that adds metal 3D printing functionality to existing machining tools, as a huge influence on their Q2 results. This tool has proved particularly successful for customers wishing to upgrade their existing CNC tools to support 3D printing and Optomec is working to establish partnerships with select machine brands to improve the process.
Dave Ramahi, Optomec president and CEO, said, “The substantial increase in bookings across both our core product lines puts us well ahead of our plan for the year and confirms that Optomec 3D Printing solutions are being well accepted for industrial production applications.”
Optomec also reported continued strong growth for its Aerosol Jet printed electronic systems, which can print conductive metals and a variety of other functional materials directly onto 3D surfaces. The Aerosol Jet high volume solution is capable of printing 2 million 3D antenna units per year and has received huge demand from the mobile device manufacturing base and also the manufacture of 3D printed sensors.
Ramahi, added, “These successes underscore our motivating belief that to be successful in the long term, 3D printing must meet the cost, efficiency and quality requirements for production sale applications.”
