The initial deployment took place at the Munich premises of sensor and defense electronics provider Hensoldt. The unique DragonFly LDM system is designed for Industry 4.0 and manufacturing for the IoT and is the extension of the DragonFly Pro precision system, a piece of equipment dedicated to printing electronic components such as multilayer Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs), antennas and sensors.

Now, the DragonFly LDM extends manufacture for 3D printed electronics beyond prototyping to true in-house, lights-out digital manufacturing, enabling one-off prototypes as well as low-volume manufacturing of printed electronics.

The equipment features proprietary, state-of-the-art technology that enables 24/7 uninterrupted 3D printing with optimized equipment effectiveness and an improved workflow and production processes. The machine combines new advanced printer head software management algorithms with automatic self-cleaning of its print heads every few hours. It comes with a real-time automatic material monitoring system that ensures maximized runtime while minimizing the frequency and duration of scheduled downtime to typically just one weekly maintenance operation.

Hensoldt started working with a DragonFly system in 2016, in order to examine the possibilities of 3D printing electronics and is still active in innovative field of technology. The implementation of the new LDM system allows for a significant reduction of time and cost for realizing circuits, which are often needed as fast as possible.