Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Open-Source Software for Designing 3D-Printable Luneburg Lenses for RF

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 38 posts

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Software for Designing 3D-Printable Luneburg Lenses for RF

#21

Post by jboirazian »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #16

Nice work! I look forward to following your development. As a radio amateur I was looking at a Luneburg lens for a 10GHz point to point link, with luck this will let me play around with that idea. Is there a discord server or forum where folks are discussing applications?

Hi ChuckMcM!

If you are interested , i also developed last year a PLA Luneburg lens for Band X (8Ghz to 12Ghz) using a conventional FDM printer.

We obtained a 6dbm gain @10Ghz

https://github.com/jboirazian/LuneburgLensGenerator

https://polar.sh/jboirazian/posts/why-luneburg-lenses-are-co...

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Software for Designing 3D-Printable Luneburg Lenses for RF

#24

Post by ChuckMcM »

jboirazian wrote: post #21
ChuckMcM wrote: post #16

Nice work! I look forward to following your development. As a radio amateur I was looking at a Luneburg lens for a 10GHz point to point link, with luck this will let me play around with that idea. Is there a discord server or forum where folks are discussing applications?

Hi ChuckMcM! If you are interested , i also developed last year a PLA Luneburg lens for Band X (8Ghz to 12Ghz) using a conventional FDM printer. We obtained a 6dbm gain @10Ghz https://github.com/jboirazian/LuneburgLensGenerator https://polar.sh/jboirazian/posts/why-luneburg-lenses-are-co...

Awesome. That is pretty much exactly what I was thinking of doing. My thought was that you could more easily weatherize something like this rather than a parabolic dish which has a lot of wind loading.

What filament did you use?

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Software for Designing 3D-Printable Luneburg Lenses for RF

#25

Post by jboirazian »

anfractuosity wrote: post #23

By SLA, does it mean resin printing then using some kind of metal coating process? Or could you use something like SLS/SLM to print the whole model in metal?

Luneburg lenses for RF are 100% dielectric.

You print your lens with a known dielectric constant uv curable resin and it its good to go!

Methods like this are the ones that Lunewave (https://lunewave.com/) use for developing RF lenses for their ADAS system

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Software for Designing 3D-Printable Luneburg Lenses for RF

#27

Post by jboirazian »

ta988 wrote: post #18

Could this be used to make the wifi in my home do right angles and avoid walls? how big would it have to be?

hi!

yes. As a matter of fact while developing this tool as my capstone project at the National Tecnological University here in Buenos Aires , im also planning on developing a 2.4Ghz lens to showcase the capabilities of the project.

2.4Ghz lenses are around 14cm diameter

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Software for Designing 3D-Printable Luneburg Lenses for RF

#28

Post by jboirazian »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #24
jboirazian wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi ChuckMcM! If you are interested , i also developed last year a PLA Luneburg lens for Band X (8Ghz to 12Ghz) using a conventional FDM printer. We obtained a 6dbm gain @10Ghz https://github.com/jboirazian/LuneburgLensGenerator https://polar.sh/jboirazian/posts/why-luneburg-lenses-are-co...

Awesome. That is pretty much exactly what I was thinking of doing. My thought was that you could more easily weatherize something like this rather than a parabolic dish which has a lot of wind loading. What filament did you use?

Conventional PLA. Since its the cheapest and surprisingly extremley stable for Ghz range RF applications

I recommed you to read the research paper "Measuring the Electrical Properties of 3D Printed Plastics in the W-Band "

(https://scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10...)

It was really useful for us when developing our lens with an FDM printer. Be warn that it does require an infill of 100% , so it will be quite heavy.

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Software for Designing 3D-Printable Luneburg Lenses for RF

#29

Post by GeorgeTirebiter »

jboirazian wrote: post #21
ChuckMcM wrote: post #16

Nice work! I look forward to following your development. As a radio amateur I was looking at a Luneburg lens for a 10GHz point to point link, with luck this will let me play around with that idea. Is there a discord server or forum where folks are discussing applications?

Hi ChuckMcM! If you are interested , i also developed last year a PLA Luneburg lens for Band X (8Ghz to 12Ghz) using a conventional FDM printer. We obtained a 6dbm gain @10Ghz https://github.com/jboirazian/LuneburgLensGenerator https://polar.sh/jboirazian/posts/why-luneburg-lenses-are-co...

6 dB gain? 'dBm' is db gain relative to 1 milliwatt of power.

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Software for Designing 3D-Printable Luneburg Lenses for RF

#30

Post by mikewarot »

dbcurtis wrote: post #14
jboirazian wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi mikewarot, As a general rule, Luneburg lenses need to have a diameter at least equal to the wavelength of the frequency they are designed to operate with. Because of this, Luneburg lenses are more cost-effective at higher frequencies, making them particularly suitable for applications in the GHz range. It is possible to develop a Luneburg lens for LoRaWAN, and I am currently working on a DRC check for various wave…

Ah, so my dream of a compact beam for the 1.8MHz band still eludes me... :)

You just need a mile or two of wire and a bunch of stakes with an open prarie for a rhombus antenna. ;-)

A roll of wire isn't very big ;-)

Post reply on HN