Silicone and PU 3D printing plays a vital role in Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) and In-Service Support (ISS), the operational readiness and maintenance of defense equipment. With Lynxter’s 3D printers, military units can quickly produce spare parts on-site, dramatically reducing downtime and supply chain reliance.

Multimaterial 3D printing enhances agility during missions, especially for ER (Emergency Repair) and BDR (Battle Damage Repair) scenarios. On the field, troops can:

One of the biggest challenges in defense is the obsolescence of components. With silicone 3D printing:

Silicone 3D printing lets designers break free from traditional limits, print directly on fabric or turn silicone into textile. Create bold textures, vibrant colours, and unique patterns on-demand. Designers can sculpt dramatic, lace-like structures on couture gowns, layer fluid, organic patterns over sheer fabrics, create statement accessories, embellish avant-garde outerwear with sculptural elements that transform a simple garment into a runway masterpiece.

Go from idea to prototype fast.
With the S300X ‑ LIQ21 & LIQ11, print complex, ready-to-use pieces in hours, perfect for custom designs, limited runs, and rapid experimentation. Silicone 3d printing enables the production of non-slip grip zones on sportswear, integrated cushioning systems in custom-fit footwear, durable and waterproof panels in jackets, flexible yet impact-resistant accessories that enhance comfort and functionality.

Reduce waste and produce only what you need. With silicone 3D printing, you can create designs on-demand, eliminating overproduction and excess inventory. Customise or upcycle garments sustainably by adding new patterns, textures, and details directly onto existing pieces, extending their lifespan. Using skin-safe, eco-friendly silicone ensures that every creation aligns with conscious fashion values.

Lynxter Silicone 3D technology gives the material a mysterious delicacy as well as surprising robustness: a major innovation for the design industry.

Of course, we think of luggage, fashion (both haute couture and ready-to-wear) but not only that… we also envision applications in the automotive or aerospace industries with personalised seats or those with better vibration absorption. In the medical field, we already imagine the bandages of tomorrow, in sports we improve accessories (silicone reinforcements on knee pads to improve durability and comfort, for example). Let’s not forget the film and entertainment industry with incredible prospects for creating unique sets and never-before-seen props.

There are numerous applications for printing on textiles, and the possibilities are limitless. Especially with our S300X ‑ LIQ21 & LIQ11 machine, silicone printing allows for two applications:

Reduce waste and produce only what you need. With silicone 3D printing, you can create designs on-demand, eliminating overproduction and excess inventory. Customise or upcycle garments sustainably by adding new patterns, textures, and details directly onto existing pieces, extending their lifespan. Using skin-safe, eco-friendly silicone ensures that every creation aligns with conscious fashion values.

Soft robotics is a technology that concerns the creation of robots that are almost entirely “soft”: their articulations and their movements are flexible thanks to the use of soft, elastic, bendable or easily deformable structures and materials.
That’s great, but how did we get here? The field of soft robotics is the natural evolution of robotics. It appeared with the development of technical silicones and innovative processes such as the 3D printing revolution. These solutions now make it possible to significantly broaden the variety of robotic motions by integrating mechanical movements of compression, stretching, unwinding and swelling. Robots therefore possess more flexible and softer motion mechanics; some robots can, for example, reproduce the undulating and twisting movement of tentacles.
Object manipulation is more precise and controlled, soft robots drastically minimise risks of danger and damage to the surrounding environment during intervention. This solution is perfectly suited to interaction with unstable or uncertain environments as well as for handling fragile objects in the food, space or medical robotics sectors, for example:
The part in question is a boot seal for a brake system – used to protect the system from water, dust, oil and ballast. It is not a very exposed part and needs to be made of a really flexible material: silicone is therefore ideal. Silicone additive manufacturing appears to be an ideal alternative to address this one-off and urgent need. How then to move from a molded part to a printed part?

A key advantage of this partnership lies in the customisation of grippers. Lynxter’s expertise in silicone 3D printing allows for tailor-made solutions that meet the specific needs of Niryo’s clients. Whether for R&D projects, handling delicate components, food products, or industrial parts, the grippers can be adjusted in shape, texture, rigidity, colour, and size.

This innovative approach enables rapid and easy integration onto robots, offering a true plug-and-play experience that minimises setup time and costs. Traditional methods require extensive resources to design silicone parts for robotics, including mold creation and material casting. Moreover, conventional molding techniques struggle to accommodate the intricate designs of grippers, which often feature internal channels, cavities, and flexible deformation angles. Only liquid IDEX 3D printing can achieve such complexity with efficiency.

Thanks to its flexibility with materials, Lynxter supports the rapid design and print cycles needed to create ergonomic devices—like personalised camera grips for users with disabilities or silicone orthopedic collars. This allows fast iteration and customisation to user anatomy, noticeably improving comfort and usability.

Plasma spraying is a surface treatment process providing a solution to deposit a coating on all or specific areas of a part. The deposited coating brings new functionalities to the surface and improves its physical, chemical or tribological properties.

This technique is based on the creation of an electric arc in a mixture of “plasma gas”. The plasma, whose temperature can reach 16,000°C, is used to melt a powder stream as it passes through the torch.

Different plasma gases are used such as argon, helium, nitrogen, or hydrogen. The gas mixture and the projection conditions can be adjusted to modify the thermal properties of the plasma as well as the speed of the particles.

The powder flow used depends on the material to be deposited. It can be metals, metal alloys, carbides, oxides, … whose composition and particle size are finely controlled. This one is propelled by a carrier gas in order to be injected in the plasma gas mixture.

Plasma spraying is carried out under atmospheric pressure and is used to reinforce parts intended to be used in extreme conditions.

Faster lead time: Silicone 3D printing enables the creation of masks tailored to specific applications, ensuring optimal performance in various geometries and treatment scenarios.

Improved compliance indicators: The flexibility of silicone 3D printed masks ensures superior sealing, preventing leaks and optimizing the efficacy of wet surface treatment.

Improved staff workflow: Silicone masks are easily removed, cleaned, and disinfected, saving time, promoting hygiene and suitability for repeated use.

Gain in flexibility: Silicone’s resistance to various chemicals enhances the durability of the mask, making it apt for a diverse range of wet surface treatments.

Post-treatment is one of the final steps in the manufacturing process of a part. In industry, it consists of carrying out one or more operations to finalise the surface condition of a part: the objective is to improve the appearance or function of the surface to adapt it to the requirements of specific uses.

Many of these operations are grouped in the “surface treatments” family. Industrial reconditioning companies or surface treatment specialists use these processes every day. Surface treatment processes are an important and advantageous step in the manufacturing cycle of a product for many sectors such as aeronautics, chemicals, energy, electronics and medical.

Within these sectors, different categories of post-treatment can be distinguished. Mechanical, chemical, and thermal post-treatment, finishing (paint, varnish, etc.). In aeronautics a machined aluminum part may undergo the following treatments: degreasing > shot blasting > dye penetrant testing (non-destructive testing) > OAC – chromic anodic oxidation > primer > finishing.

Ligier Automotive used silicone 3D printing to prototype transmission bellows, avoiding costly molding for small production runs while testing performance under extreme conditions like high temperatures, speeds, and exposure to grease.

An alternative to producing a molded part, which requires specific tools and is not cost-effective for single or very small series production. With a printing time of 3 hours 50 minutes per part, and rapid CAD design modifications (thickness), 2 business days are sufficient to finalise the part’s development.

Tests were conducted on the manufacturer’s Ligier JS2 R development car. These initial tests were particularly positive as the bellows responded perfectly: resistance to temperature, behavior at high speed: no deformation, no grease ejection. The technology thus appears compatible with these significant technical constraints and could offer an interesting solution for prototyping and small series of bellows of all types.

Faced with a supply shortage, a railway company used Lynxter’s silicone 3D printing to rapidly produce a critical brake system seal, cutting lead time from weeks to days and showcasing the speed and flexibility of additive manufacturing in emergency situations.

The company needed to change a faulty part on one of its trains. However, this part is out of stock. The part is traditionally produced using injection molding and typically requires a manufacturing lead time of several months; a delay that the company could not anticipate due to the unforeseen nature of the incident. When this particular part is damaged or missing, the train may be immobilised, resulting in significant financial loss for the company.

The deadlock situation was therefore resolved rapidly thanks to additive manufacturing along with a quick modification of the original CAD. This maintenance operation, that would have taken many weeks to resolve with the classic supply chain, was successfully dealt with in just days thanks to the S600D.