One of the project’s goals is to create a suspension that maintains thermal degrees of freedom for the PCB with a CMOS sensor. The suspension will be manufactured using metal powder 3D printing technology. This is a specific manufacturing technique where the part is created additively through selective laser sintering of metal powder using a collimated laser beam. The process of designing parts dedicated to metal 3D printing differs significantly from designing parts for conventional subtractive manufacturing technologies. To understand the technological capabilities, we decided to create test samples that will help us better understand the limitations of this technology and facilitate proper design of the final structure.

For this purpose, we ordered prints of 3 test samples:

• a part containing a set of cuboids with decreasing cross-sectional area,
• a part containing a set of cuboids with increasing height,
• a part containing a set of M2 threaded holes with added material allowance (to estimate the amount of allowance needed for potential thread post-processing).

The prints were made using Laser Powder Bed Fusion technology on an Aconity 3D printer. The image shows the print attached to the printer’s base plate with support structures. Material: 304 stainless steel powder.