When manufacturing 3D printed RF devices, designers and fabricators are limited by the size of the build volume of the 3D printer they intend to use. This boundary can create challenging limits, forcing designers to consider alternative ways to leverage the advantages of the printer while also negotiating other product requirements.
This case study introduces a design of experiments to test the impact of post-print assembly test methods and their impact on the resultant RF behavior of a Graded Refractive Index (GRIN) device and discusses the practical implications of this data and how an engineer can leverage these results for their own device design.