Negligible Cost Microfluid Scaffolds by hfelton

Last crawled date: 2 years, 10 months ago

These devices are examples of the microfluidic device scaffolds used in the open-access journal "Negligible-cost microfluidic device fabrication using 3D-printed interconnecting channel scaffolds" (Felton H, Hughes R, Diaz-Gaxiola A (2021) Negligible-cost microfluidic device fabrication using 3D-printed interconnecting channel scaffolds. PLoS ONE 16(2): e0245206. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245206).
These devices intend to reduce the economic overhead and expertise required to fabricate microfluidic devices for education and research purposes. The devices here, intended for fabrication using any MEX printer with a 0.4 mm nozzle and PLA, provide a simple library that would allow users to create and test a variety of microfluidic devices.
The manufacture of these parts are unlikely to be as straight forward as a "normal" print volume that you would find on this site due to their very fine size. As such, it is likely you will need to test suitable print settings for your specific printer. Settings for an Ultimaker 3 Extended are provided within the paper linked above. In Cura you will likely need to reduce the printed line width, slow the print head down, and allow thin walls to be printed - though other setting changes will likely improve the result.
Devices with different geometry may be generated using an Autodesk Fusion add-in available here: https://github.com/dmf-lab/microfluidics
Once the parts have been printed, they can be assembled into a full microfluid device using the guidance in the linked paper or by following the protocol here: https://www.protocols.io/view/open-source-microfluidic-scaffolds-biw7kfhn