That's what I thought normally, but these lenses on the rockets and other LNB's are just caps really and don't seem to be anything special.g4eml wrote: ↑Sat Apr 20, 2019 9:54 am3D printing could produce something that looks like a dielectric lens but almost certainly wouldn’t work like one.
The dielectric constant of the material used will be very critical so different plastics or even different batches of the same plastic could vary. Even if you managed to measure and reproduce the exact formulation used in the commercial lenses the layered structure of a 3D printed lens would most likely affect the results.
The commercial lenses are actually made in two interlocking parts. I wouldn’t be surprised if the dielectric constant of the two plastics is different and the transition between them is also part of the design.
Quoting the link above these people http://www.hybridpretender.nl/ state the PLA printed lens performs as well as the milled PA lens.