Realization of X-Band Waveguide Filters by Low-Cost FDM Additive Manufacturing Techniques

In this paper the realization of X-band waveguide filters in low-cost additive manufacturing (AM) techniques is discussed. All filters proposed here are manufactured with the economic fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique, which is very robust and has the smallest acquisition cost/overheads in comparison to other 3-D printing techniques commercially available. Six third-order filters are compared within this paper in terms of manufacturing accuracy, available Q-factor and spurious mode performance. The filter designs are discussed as well as the realization in the low-cost FDM printing technique. The galvanization as the last step of the realization process is addressed within this paper as well. The measurements show good agreement with the simulation.