https://reprap.org/mediawiki/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=462RUG&feedformat=atomRepRap - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T09:18:05ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.30.0https://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Wallace&diff=130227RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/PSU Wallace2014-07-25T15:58:18Z<p>462RUG: /* Basic Printer Operation */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Unit_Wallace_small.png|right|x142px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:Unit_Wallace_small.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Wallace | Wallace]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_Wallace_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Wallace|25px|alt=Wallace]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|White<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|0.35 mm<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
|TBD<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
3D printer codename: Wallace is a unit that is currently in progress. Construction began during the 2nd week of the Spring semester (January 2014). The effort is headed by Brandon Tunkel and Alex Marcireau. The design is a modification of the RepRap Wallace printer, dubbed the [https://github.com/makevoid/RepRap_3DM1 3DM1]. The build is slated to reach completion by the end of the Spring semester.<br />
<br />
The decision to switch to the Wallace design was based on several advantages over the Open Hybrid Mendel printers. First off, this style of printer is intended to be as simple as possible. This is accomplished by utilizing as few parts as necessary. This results in a lower cost and assembly effort. Additionally, it allows for a more robust printer. Fewer joints and points of attachment result in fewer places for unwanted motion or "play". Secondly, the Wallace design allows for a large print volume. The nature of the design permits a large range of motion in each axial direction. The printer bed is considerably large at 20" x 14.5", and the Z-axis can accommodate a print approximately 11" in height.<br />
<br />
Other improvements with this printer that are not exclusive to the 3DM1 design are the Bowden extruder and linear bearings. This extruder type allows for less weight and thus less mass to move in all axial directions. This will reduce shaking of the extruder and allow for faster movement when not extruding. The motors will also be under a smaller load in comparison to that experienced in moving a conventional extruder. Linear bearings make part of the simplicity of the Wallace design possible. A single linear bearing will stay fixed to a shaft, whereas at least 2 ball bearings would be required to do the same job (also requiring a system to fix the bearings to the carriage).<br />
<br />
=Log=<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable" border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse;<br />
!Date<br />
!Modification / Problem<br />
|-<br />
<br />
<!-- ADD NEW COMMENTS TO THE LOG AFTER THIS LINE --><br />
|algin="center" |7/25/2014<br />
|Fully operational with auto-bed leveling! Currently trying to find a good place to mount the extruder.<br />
|-<br />
|align="center" |4/8/2014<br />
|Mechanical components are assembled and nearly ready for function. Electronic components are in hand, but have not been attached to the printer. All wiring has yet to be completed. The Bowden extruder is assembled but still needs a hot tip and wiring.<br />
|-<br />
|align="center" |4/24/2014<br />
|The electronics have been tested and attached to the printer. The hot tip has been obtained and the extruder is undergoing its final assembly.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
=Operating Specifications=<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable" border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse;<br />
|Design<br />
|[[3DM1]]<br />
|-<br />
|Electronics<br />
|RAMPS 1.4<br />
|-<br />
|Firmware<br />
|[[Marlin]]<br />
|-<br />
|Extruder<br />
|0.35mm<br />
|-<br />
|Heated Bed<br />
|No<br />
|}<br />
<br />
=PSU Unit Wallace - Current Condition =<br />
<gallery><br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 1.JPG|Overall view<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 2.JPG|Close up<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 3.JPG|Bowden extruder<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 4.JPG|Electronics mounted<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 5.JPG|Brandon Tunkel at work<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
=Basic Printer Operation=<br />
This printer has a few unique things you need to do before printing.<br />
First of all, there are some specific print settings needed for Slic3r.<br />
<br />
- I use a 0.735 extrusion multiplier<br />
<br />
- Layer heigts must be low, I use 0.15mm (this is to reduce bowden pressure)<br />
<br />
- I also use a 0.3mm extrusion width for all of the available settings (again, to reduce bowden pressure)<br />
<br />
- Printing is done at 220C and MUST HAVE the fan on. It will become extremely difficult to use without it.<br />
<br />
- Finally, I have 1mm of wiped retraction and 1mm of extrusion on restart. I am not set on these values, so feel free to edit them, however this seems to be working O.K..<br />
<br />
Now onto the other random stuff.<br />
Changing filament is hard. Enough said.<br />
When you heat the filament to remove it, some filament expands in the chamber and is impossible to pull through the coupling on the hot tip side of the bowden. <br />
I suggest you remove the tube from the connector, heat the extruder, pull out the filament by hand and cut the swollen portion. Then you can change filament much easier.<br />
The same goes for loading. I suggest you feed the filament all the way through the tube without the end of the tube inserted into the quick fit coupling. Then, with about 5 cm of filament protruding from the tube, insert the filament into the connector and work the filament down into the extruder until the tube is once again secured in the coupling. <br />
<br />
As for print operation, this printer has (semi-) auto bed leveling, which is handy because its large bed is nearly impossible to keep level. There is no servo (at the moment) to move the switch in position, however there is an arm that can be flipped down manually. Upon starting up the printer, flip the switch down and send a G28 command. It should home and move somewhere towards the right-middle of the print bed. Then send a G29 command. This probes the bed 9 times to get an accurate reading. <br />
Next, put the probe in the up position (so its out of the way) and run your print! <br />
<br />
Good luck and happy printing!<br />
<br />
7/25/2014 462RUG<br />
<br />
=Video - Current Condition=<br />
<videoflash type="youtube">k6W8mqX-ApI</videoflash><br />
<br />
=Assorted Prints=<br />
...soon<br />
<!--<gallery><br />
File:Color_Gear1.JPG|Color Gear (front)<br />
File:Color_Gear2.JPG|Color Gear (back)<br />
</gallery>--><br />
<br />
=Operators=<br />
==This machine is currently being assembled by:==<br />
<br />
* Brandon Tunkel ([[User:Tunkelbs|Tunkelbs]])<br />
<br />
<br />
{{PSURUG}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:RUG, Pennsylvania, State College]]</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Wallace&diff=130226RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/PSU Wallace2014-07-25T15:57:25Z<p>462RUG: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Unit_Wallace_small.png|right|x142px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:Unit_Wallace_small.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Wallace | Wallace]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_Wallace_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Wallace|25px|alt=Wallace]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|White<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|0.35 mm<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
|TBD<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
3D printer codename: Wallace is a unit that is currently in progress. Construction began during the 2nd week of the Spring semester (January 2014). The effort is headed by Brandon Tunkel and Alex Marcireau. The design is a modification of the RepRap Wallace printer, dubbed the [https://github.com/makevoid/RepRap_3DM1 3DM1]. The build is slated to reach completion by the end of the Spring semester.<br />
<br />
The decision to switch to the Wallace design was based on several advantages over the Open Hybrid Mendel printers. First off, this style of printer is intended to be as simple as possible. This is accomplished by utilizing as few parts as necessary. This results in a lower cost and assembly effort. Additionally, it allows for a more robust printer. Fewer joints and points of attachment result in fewer places for unwanted motion or "play". Secondly, the Wallace design allows for a large print volume. The nature of the design permits a large range of motion in each axial direction. The printer bed is considerably large at 20" x 14.5", and the Z-axis can accommodate a print approximately 11" in height.<br />
<br />
Other improvements with this printer that are not exclusive to the 3DM1 design are the Bowden extruder and linear bearings. This extruder type allows for less weight and thus less mass to move in all axial directions. This will reduce shaking of the extruder and allow for faster movement when not extruding. The motors will also be under a smaller load in comparison to that experienced in moving a conventional extruder. Linear bearings make part of the simplicity of the Wallace design possible. A single linear bearing will stay fixed to a shaft, whereas at least 2 ball bearings would be required to do the same job (also requiring a system to fix the bearings to the carriage).<br />
<br />
=Log=<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable" border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse;<br />
!Date<br />
!Modification / Problem<br />
|-<br />
<br />
<!-- ADD NEW COMMENTS TO THE LOG AFTER THIS LINE --><br />
|algin="center" |7/25/2014<br />
|Fully operational with auto-bed leveling! Currently trying to find a good place to mount the extruder.<br />
|-<br />
|align="center" |4/8/2014<br />
|Mechanical components are assembled and nearly ready for function. Electronic components are in hand, but have not been attached to the printer. All wiring has yet to be completed. The Bowden extruder is assembled but still needs a hot tip and wiring.<br />
|-<br />
|align="center" |4/24/2014<br />
|The electronics have been tested and attached to the printer. The hot tip has been obtained and the extruder is undergoing its final assembly.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
=Operating Specifications=<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable" border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse;<br />
|Design<br />
|[[3DM1]]<br />
|-<br />
|Electronics<br />
|RAMPS 1.4<br />
|-<br />
|Firmware<br />
|[[Marlin]]<br />
|-<br />
|Extruder<br />
|0.35mm<br />
|-<br />
|Heated Bed<br />
|No<br />
|}<br />
<br />
=PSU Unit Wallace - Current Condition =<br />
<gallery><br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 1.JPG|Overall view<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 2.JPG|Close up<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 3.JPG|Bowden extruder<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 4.JPG|Electronics mounted<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 5.JPG|Brandon Tunkel at work<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
=Basic Printer Operation=<br />
This printer has a few unique things you need to do before printing.<br />
First of all, there are some specific print settings needed for Slic3r.<br />
- I use a 0.735 extrusion multiplier<br />
- Layer heigts must be low, I use 0.15mm (this is to reduce bowden pressure)<br />
- I also use a 0.3mm extrusion width for all of the available settings (again, to reduce bowden pressure)<br />
- Printing is done at 220C and MUST HAVE the fan on. It will become extremely difficult to use without it.<br />
- Finally, I have 1mm of wiped retraction and 1mm of extrusion on restart. I am not set on these values, so feel free to edit them, however this seems to be working O.K..<br />
<br />
Now onto the other random stuff.<br />
Changing filament is hard. Enough said.<br />
When you heat the filament to remove it, some filament expands in the chamber and is impossible to pull through the coupling on the hot tip side of the bowden. <br />
I suggest you remove the tube from the connector, heat the extruder, pull out the filament by hand and cut the swollen portion. Then you can change filament much easier.<br />
The same goes for loading. I suggest you feed the filament all the way through the tube without the end of the tube inserted into the quick fit coupling. Then, with about 5 cm of filament protruding from the tube, insert the filament into the connector and work the filament down into the extruder until the tube is once again secured in the coupling. <br />
<br />
As for print operation, this printer has (semi-) auto bed leveling, which is handy because its large bed is nearly impossible to keep level. There is no servo (at the moment) to move the switch in position, however there is an arm that can be flipped down manually. Upon starting up the printer, flip the switch down and send a G28 command. It should home and move somewhere towards the right-middle of the print bed. Then send a G29 command. This probes the bed 9 times to get an accurate reading. <br />
Next, put the probe in the up position (so its out of the way) and run your print! <br />
<br />
Good luck and happy printing!<br />
<br />
7/25/2014 462RUG<br />
<br />
=Video - Current Condition=<br />
<videoflash type="youtube">k6W8mqX-ApI</videoflash><br />
<br />
=Assorted Prints=<br />
...soon<br />
<!--<gallery><br />
File:Color_Gear1.JPG|Color Gear (front)<br />
File:Color_Gear2.JPG|Color Gear (back)<br />
</gallery>--><br />
<br />
=Operators=<br />
==This machine is currently being assembled by:==<br />
<br />
* Brandon Tunkel ([[User:Tunkelbs|Tunkelbs]])<br />
<br />
<br />
{{PSURUG}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:RUG, Pennsylvania, State College]]</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Wallace&diff=130225RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/PSU Wallace2014-07-25T15:35:08Z<p>462RUG: /* Log */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Unit_Wallace_small.png|right|x142px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:Unit_Wallace_small.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Wallace | Wallace]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_Wallace_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Wallace|25px|alt=Wallace]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|White<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|0.35 mm<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
|TBD<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
3D printer codename: Wallace is a unit that is currently in progress. Construction began during the 2nd week of the Spring semester (January 2014). The effort is headed by Brandon Tunkel and Alex Marcireau. The design is a modification of the RepRap Wallace printer, dubbed the [https://github.com/makevoid/RepRap_3DM1 3DM1]. The build is slated to reach completion by the end of the Spring semester.<br />
<br />
The decision to switch to the Wallace design was based on several advantages over the Open Hybrid Mendel printers. First off, this style of printer is intended to be as simple as possible. This is accomplished by utilizing as few parts as necessary. This results in a lower cost and assembly effort. Additionally, it allows for a more robust printer. Fewer joints and points of attachment result in fewer places for unwanted motion or "play". Secondly, the Wallace design allows for a large print volume. The nature of the design permits a large range of motion in each axial direction. The printer bed is considerably large at 20" x 14.5", and the Z-axis can accommodate a print approximately 11" in height.<br />
<br />
Other improvements with this printer that are not exclusive to the 3DM1 design are the Bowden extruder and linear bearings. This extruder type allows for less weight and thus less mass to move in all axial directions. This will reduce shaking of the extruder and allow for faster movement when not extruding. The motors will also be under a smaller load in comparison to that experienced in moving a conventional extruder. Linear bearings make part of the simplicity of the Wallace design possible. A single linear bearing will stay fixed to a shaft, whereas at least 2 ball bearings would be required to do the same job (also requiring a system to fix the bearings to the carriage).<br />
<br />
=Log=<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable" border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse;<br />
!Date<br />
!Modification / Problem<br />
|-<br />
<br />
<!-- ADD NEW COMMENTS TO THE LOG AFTER THIS LINE --><br />
|algin="center" |7/25/2014<br />
|Fully operational with auto-bed leveling! Currently trying to find a good place to mount the extruder.<br />
|-<br />
|align="center" |4/8/2014<br />
|Mechanical components are assembled and nearly ready for function. Electronic components are in hand, but have not been attached to the printer. All wiring has yet to be completed. The Bowden extruder is assembled but still needs a hot tip and wiring.<br />
|-<br />
|align="center" |4/24/2014<br />
|The electronics have been tested and attached to the printer. The hot tip has been obtained and the extruder is undergoing its final assembly.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
=Operating Specifications=<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable" border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse;<br />
|Design<br />
|[[3DM1]]<br />
|-<br />
|Electronics<br />
|RAMPS 1.4<br />
|-<br />
|Firmware<br />
|[[Marlin]]<br />
|-<br />
|Extruder<br />
|0.35mm<br />
|-<br />
|Heated Bed<br />
|No<br />
|}<br />
<br />
=PSU Unit Wallace - Current Condition =<br />
<gallery><br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 1.JPG|Overall view<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 2.JPG|Close up<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 3.JPG|Bowden extruder<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 4.JPG|Electronics mounted<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 5.JPG|Brandon Tunkel at work<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
=Video - Current Condition=<br />
<videoflash type="youtube">k6W8mqX-ApI</videoflash><br />
<br />
=Assorted Prints=<br />
...soon<br />
<!--<gallery><br />
File:Color_Gear1.JPG|Color Gear (front)<br />
File:Color_Gear2.JPG|Color Gear (back)<br />
</gallery>--><br />
<br />
=Operators=<br />
==This machine is currently being assembled by:==<br />
<br />
* Brandon Tunkel ([[User:Tunkelbs|Tunkelbs]])<br />
<br />
<br />
{{PSURUG}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:RUG, Pennsylvania, State College]]</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Wallace&diff=130224RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/PSU Wallace2014-07-25T15:34:28Z<p>462RUG: /* Log */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Unit_Wallace_small.png|right|x142px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:Unit_Wallace_small.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Wallace | Wallace]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_Wallace_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Wallace|25px|alt=Wallace]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|White<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|0.35 mm<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
|TBD<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
3D printer codename: Wallace is a unit that is currently in progress. Construction began during the 2nd week of the Spring semester (January 2014). The effort is headed by Brandon Tunkel and Alex Marcireau. The design is a modification of the RepRap Wallace printer, dubbed the [https://github.com/makevoid/RepRap_3DM1 3DM1]. The build is slated to reach completion by the end of the Spring semester.<br />
<br />
The decision to switch to the Wallace design was based on several advantages over the Open Hybrid Mendel printers. First off, this style of printer is intended to be as simple as possible. This is accomplished by utilizing as few parts as necessary. This results in a lower cost and assembly effort. Additionally, it allows for a more robust printer. Fewer joints and points of attachment result in fewer places for unwanted motion or "play". Secondly, the Wallace design allows for a large print volume. The nature of the design permits a large range of motion in each axial direction. The printer bed is considerably large at 20" x 14.5", and the Z-axis can accommodate a print approximately 11" in height.<br />
<br />
Other improvements with this printer that are not exclusive to the 3DM1 design are the Bowden extruder and linear bearings. This extruder type allows for less weight and thus less mass to move in all axial directions. This will reduce shaking of the extruder and allow for faster movement when not extruding. The motors will also be under a smaller load in comparison to that experienced in moving a conventional extruder. Linear bearings make part of the simplicity of the Wallace design possible. A single linear bearing will stay fixed to a shaft, whereas at least 2 ball bearings would be required to do the same job (also requiring a system to fix the bearings to the carriage).<br />
<br />
=Log=<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable" border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse;<br />
!Date<br />
!Modification / Problem<br />
|-<br />
<br />
<!-- ADD NEW COMMENTS TO THE LOG AFTER THIS LINE --><br />
|algin="center" |7/25/2014<br />
|Fully operational with auto-bed leveling! Currently trying to find a good place to mount the extruder.<br />
|align="center" |4/8/2014<br />
|Mechanical components are assembled and nearly ready for function. Electronic components are in hand, but have not been attached to the printer. All wiring has yet to be completed. The Bowden extruder is assembled but still needs a hot tip and wiring.<br />
|-<br />
|align="center" |4/24/2014<br />
|The electronics have been tested and attached to the printer. The hot tip has been obtained and the extruder is undergoing its final assembly.<br />
|}<br />
<br />
=Operating Specifications=<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable" border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse;<br />
|Design<br />
|[[3DM1]]<br />
|-<br />
|Electronics<br />
|RAMPS 1.4<br />
|-<br />
|Firmware<br />
|[[Marlin]]<br />
|-<br />
|Extruder<br />
|0.35mm<br />
|-<br />
|Heated Bed<br />
|No<br />
|}<br />
<br />
=PSU Unit Wallace - Current Condition =<br />
<gallery><br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 1.JPG|Overall view<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 2.JPG|Close up<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 3.JPG|Bowden extruder<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 4.JPG|Electronics mounted<br />
<br />
File:PSU Unit Wallace 5.JPG|Brandon Tunkel at work<br />
</gallery><br />
<br />
=Video - Current Condition=<br />
<videoflash type="youtube">k6W8mqX-ApI</videoflash><br />
<br />
=Assorted Prints=<br />
...soon<br />
<!--<gallery><br />
File:Color_Gear1.JPG|Color Gear (front)<br />
File:Color_Gear2.JPG|Color Gear (back)<br />
</gallery>--><br />
<br />
=Operators=<br />
==This machine is currently being assembled by:==<br />
<br />
* Brandon Tunkel ([[User:Tunkelbs|Tunkelbs]])<br />
<br />
<br />
{{PSURUG}}<br />
<br />
[[Category:RUG, Pennsylvania, State College]]</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128623RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-30T13:17:39Z<p>462RUG: /* Blog Entries */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Linear Bearings.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/30/2014==<br />
After a weekend of thinking about how to successfully print multiple perimeters, we are still at a loss on how to do so. It seems like the perimeters aren't adhering to each other. Unfortunately, if we increase the extrusion multiplier, it just makes the part taller and less precise. It ''seems'' like a 2.5 E.M. is the way to go at the moment. <br />
==6/26/2014==<br />
A change of direction:<br />
Our initial intent was to put cells into the alginate and extrude them into the desired shape. However, after looking at the details more closely, it looks like the calcium concentration is too high to allow the cells to live once they have been printed. We have decided to put this idea on hold for the time being and continue printing alginate that we could, at some point, seed with cells.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before attempting removal from the gelatin. The single walled cylinder looked very nice at a 4.25 E.M.. We then started printing two walled cylinders. At slow speeds the slurry was being dragged and deforming the print. Doubling the speed seems to help this a lot. Also, we began heating the slurries before printing. This eliminates the need to add water (diluting the solution)and helps keep the slurries very uniform in texture. It does cross link soon after it begins to cool, so it should be used shortly after removing heat. We may even heat the slurry slightly during prints. <br />
<br />
We started with a 4.25 E.M. two walled print. It turned out almost twice as tall as the design, however it was structurally sound. We then conducted two sets of tests with 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, 3, and 3.25 E.M.. The first set was inconclusive due to an inconsistent slurry. The second set was very solid, however the two perimeters separated upon removal from the gelatin. We will have to adjust the extrusion width to attempt to resolve this issue. Hopefully adjusting this won't drag the other perimeter around..<br />
<br />
The second trials came out much better and it seems the E.M. doesn't make much difference for structural integrity. Upon inspection, as the E.M. was increased for each print, the height of the print increased. They varied from being about 1mm short of twice as tall to 2mm taller than twice the desired height. Further experimentation will need to be conducted to find a proper extrusion multiplier. Perhaps layer heights need to be adjusted, or the extrusion multiplier, or the extrusion width.<br />
<br />
The heated bed is now a necessity for keeping a consistent slurry. We hope it will eliminate the multitude of variables that are created by the slurry. Tomorrow we plan to mount the bed to the printer, so we can maintain temperature during the print. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the cross-linked alginate will have the same volume as the volume of dissolved alginate printed. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/16/2014 - 6/19/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/9/2014 - 6/13/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/2/2014 - 6/6/2014==<br />
<br />
==5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014==<br />
This is the beginning of 8 weeks of work on the bioprinter. I am starting by exploring the use of custom G-Code for the bioprinter. Slic3r seems as though it may be too complicated for the first few prints that we will attempt. It also allows the user to set the start point easily and precisely, which is advantageous when we may be printing into containers in specific places on the bed. <br />
<br />
Also, I printed a small stand to hold the jello-shot cups (which serve as print containers).<br />
<br />
Testing has begun using white pudding extruded into green Jello-brand jello prepared with the instructions on the box. The tests help refine the extrusion rates where I found that .125mm E per 10mm travel was a pretty good value. Currently, the printer is not very accurate due to the axis tilting upon the change of direction. I hope to change the axis to linear bearings.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128622RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-30T13:01:17Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/26/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Linear Bearings.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/26/2014==<br />
A change of direction:<br />
Our initial intent was to put cells into the alginate and extrude them into the desired shape. However, after looking at the details more closely, it looks like the calcium concentration is too high to allow the cells to live once they have been printed. We have decided to put this idea on hold for the time being and continue printing alginate that we could, at some point, seed with cells.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before attempting removal from the gelatin. The single walled cylinder looked very nice at a 4.25 E.M.. We then started printing two walled cylinders. At slow speeds the slurry was being dragged and deforming the print. Doubling the speed seems to help this a lot. Also, we began heating the slurries before printing. This eliminates the need to add water (diluting the solution)and helps keep the slurries very uniform in texture. It does cross link soon after it begins to cool, so it should be used shortly after removing heat. We may even heat the slurry slightly during prints. <br />
<br />
We started with a 4.25 E.M. two walled print. It turned out almost twice as tall as the design, however it was structurally sound. We then conducted two sets of tests with 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, 3, and 3.25 E.M.. The first set was inconclusive due to an inconsistent slurry. The second set was very solid, however the two perimeters separated upon removal from the gelatin. We will have to adjust the extrusion width to attempt to resolve this issue. Hopefully adjusting this won't drag the other perimeter around..<br />
<br />
The second trials came out much better and it seems the E.M. doesn't make much difference for structural integrity. Upon inspection, as the E.M. was increased for each print, the height of the print increased. They varied from being about 1mm short of twice as tall to 2mm taller than twice the desired height. Further experimentation will need to be conducted to find a proper extrusion multiplier. Perhaps layer heights need to be adjusted, or the extrusion multiplier, or the extrusion width.<br />
<br />
The heated bed is now a necessity for keeping a consistent slurry. We hope it will eliminate the multitude of variables that are created by the slurry. Tomorrow we plan to mount the bed to the printer, so we can maintain temperature during the print. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the cross-linked alginate will have the same volume as the volume of dissolved alginate printed. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/16/2014 - 6/19/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/9/2014 - 6/13/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/2/2014 - 6/6/2014==<br />
<br />
==5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014==<br />
This is the beginning of 8 weeks of work on the bioprinter. I am starting by exploring the use of custom G-Code for the bioprinter. Slic3r seems as though it may be too complicated for the first few prints that we will attempt. It also allows the user to set the start point easily and precisely, which is advantageous when we may be printing into containers in specific places on the bed. <br />
<br />
Also, I printed a small stand to hold the jello-shot cups (which serve as print containers).<br />
<br />
Testing has begun using white pudding extruded into green Jello-brand jello prepared with the instructions on the box. The tests help refine the extrusion rates where I found that .125mm E per 10mm travel was a pretty good value. Currently, the printer is not very accurate due to the axis tilting upon the change of direction. I hope to change the axis to linear bearings.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128480RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-26T20:33:19Z<p>462RUG: /* Blog Entries */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Linear Bearings.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/26/2014==<br />
A change of direction:<br />
<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before attempting removal from the gelatin. The single walled cylinder looked very nice at a 4.25 E.M.. We then started printing two walled cylinders. At slow speeds the slurry was being dragged and deforming the print. Doubling the speed seems to help this a lot. Also, we began heating the slurries before printing. This eliminates the need to add water (diluting the solution)and helps keep the slurries very uniform in texture. It does cross link soon after it begins to cool, so it should be used shortly after removing heat. We may even heat the slurry slightly during prints. <br />
<br />
We started with a 4.25 E.M. two walled print. It turned out almost twice as tall as the design, however it was structurally sound. We then conducted two sets of tests with 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, 3, and 3.25 E.M.. The first set was inconclusive due to an inconsistent slurry. The second set was very solid, however the two perimeters separated upon removal from the gelatin. We will have to adjust the extrusion width to attempt to resolve this issue. Hopefully adjusting this won't drag the other perimeter around..<br />
<br />
The second trials came out much better and it seems the E.M. doesn't make much difference for structural integrity. Upon inspection, as the E.M. was increased for each print, the height of the print increased. They varied from being about 1mm short of twice as tall to 2mm taller than twice the desired height. Further experimentation will need to be conducted to find a proper extrusion multiplier. Perhaps layer heights need to be adjusted, or the extrusion multiplier, or the extrusion width.<br />
<br />
The heated bed is now a necessity for keeping a consistent slurry. We hope it will eliminate the multitude of variables that are created by the slurry. Tomorrow we plan to mount the bed to the printer, so we can maintain temperature during the print. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the cross-linked alginate will have the same volume as the volume of dissolved alginate printed. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/16/2014 - 6/19/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/9/2014 - 6/13/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/2/2014 - 6/6/2014==<br />
<br />
==5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014==<br />
This is the beginning of 8 weeks of work on the bioprinter. I am starting by exploring the use of custom G-Code for the bioprinter. Slic3r seems as though it may be too complicated for the first few prints that we will attempt. It also allows the user to set the start point easily and precisely, which is advantageous when we may be printing into containers in specific places on the bed. <br />
<br />
Also, I printed a small stand to hold the jello-shot cups (which serve as print containers).<br />
<br />
Testing has begun using white pudding extruded into green Jello-brand jello prepared with the instructions on the box. The tests help refine the extrusion rates where I found that .125mm E per 10mm travel was a pretty good value. Currently, the printer is not very accurate due to the axis tilting upon the change of direction. I hope to change the axis to linear bearings.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128456RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-26T13:55:58Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/25/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Linear Bearings.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before attempting removal from the gelatin. The single walled cylinder looked very nice at a 4.25 E.M.. We then started printing two walled cylinders. At slow speeds the slurry was being dragged and deforming the print. Doubling the speed seems to help this a lot. Also, we began heating the slurries before printing. This eliminates the need to add water (diluting the solution)and helps keep the slurries very uniform in texture. It does cross link soon after it begins to cool, so it should be used shortly after removing heat. We may even heat the slurry slightly during prints. <br />
<br />
We started with a 4.25 E.M. two walled print. It turned out almost twice as tall as the design, however it was structurally sound. We then conducted two sets of tests with 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, 3, and 3.25 E.M.. The first set was inconclusive due to an inconsistent slurry. The second set was very solid, however the two perimeters separated upon removal from the gelatin. We will have to adjust the extrusion width to attempt to resolve this issue. Hopefully adjusting this won't drag the other perimeter around..<br />
<br />
The second trials came out much better and it seems the E.M. doesn't make much difference for structural integrity. Upon inspection, as the E.M. was increased for each print, the height of the print increased. They varied from being about 1mm short of twice as tall to 2mm taller than twice the desired height. Further experimentation will need to be conducted to find a proper extrusion multiplier. Perhaps layer heights need to be adjusted, or the extrusion multiplier, or the extrusion width.<br />
<br />
The heated bed is now a necessity for keeping a consistent slurry. We hope it will eliminate the multitude of variables that are created by the slurry. Tomorrow we plan to mount the bed to the printer, so we can maintain temperature during the print. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the cross-linked alginate will have the same volume as the volume of dissolved alginate printed. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/16/2014 - 6/19/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/9/2014 - 6/13/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/2/2014 - 6/6/2014==<br />
<br />
==5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014==<br />
This is the beginning of 8 weeks of work on the bioprinter. I am starting by exploring the use of custom G-Code for the bioprinter. Slic3r seems as though it may be too complicated for the first few prints that we will attempt. It also allows the user to set the start point easily and precisely, which is advantageous when we may be printing into containers in specific places on the bed. <br />
<br />
Also, I printed a small stand to hold the jello-shot cups (which serve as print containers).<br />
<br />
Testing has begun using white pudding extruded into green Jello-brand jello prepared with the instructions on the box. The tests help refine the extrusion rates where I found that .125mm E per 10mm travel was a pretty good value. Currently, the printer is not very accurate due to the axis tilting upon the change of direction. I hope to change the axis to linear bearings.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128455RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-26T13:54:48Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/25/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Linear Bearings.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before attempting removal from the gelatin. The single walled cylinder looked very nice at a 4.25 E.M.. We then started printing two walled cylinders. At slow speeds the slurry was being dragged and therefore deformed the print. Doubling the speed seems to help this a lot. Also, we began heating the slurries before printing. This eliminates the need to add water (diluting the solution)and helps keep the slurries very uniform. It does cross link soon after it heats, so it should be used shortly after removing heat. We may even heat the slurry slightly during prints. <br />
<br />
We started with a 4.25 E.M. two walled print. It turned out almost twice as tall as the design, however it was structurally sound. We then conducted two sets of tests with 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, 3, and 3.25 E.M.. The first set was inconclusive due to an inconsistent slurry. The second set was very solid, however the two perimeters separated upon removal from the gelatin. We will have to adjust the extrusion width to attempt to resolve this issue. Hopefully adjusting this won't drag the other perimeter around..<br />
<br />
The second trials came out much better and it seems the E.M. doesn't make much difference for structural integrity. Upon inspection, as the E.M. was increased for each print, the height of the print increased. They varied from being about 1mm short of twice as tall to 2mm taller than twice the desired height. Further experimentation will need to be conducted to find a proper extrusion multiplier. Perhaps layer heights need to be adjusted, or the extrusion multiplier, or the extrusion width.<br />
<br />
The heated bed is now a necessity for keeping a consistent slurry. We hope it will eliminate the multitude of variables that are created by the slurry. Tomorrow we plan to mount the bed to the printer, so we can maintain temperature during the print. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the cross-linked alginate will have the same volume as the volume of dissolved alginate printed. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/16/2014 - 6/19/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/9/2014 - 6/13/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/2/2014 - 6/6/2014==<br />
<br />
==5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014==<br />
This is the beginning of 8 weeks of work on the bioprinter. I am starting by exploring the use of custom G-Code for the bioprinter. Slic3r seems as though it may be too complicated for the first few prints that we will attempt. It also allows the user to set the start point easily and precisely, which is advantageous when we may be printing into containers in specific places on the bed. <br />
<br />
Also, I printed a small stand to hold the jello-shot cups (which serve as print containers).<br />
<br />
Testing has begun using white pudding extruded into green Jello-brand jello prepared with the instructions on the box. The tests help refine the extrusion rates where I found that .125mm E per 10mm travel was a pretty good value. Currently, the printer is not very accurate due to the axis tilting upon the change of direction. I hope to change the axis to linear bearings.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128434RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-25T20:12:29Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/25/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Linear Bearings.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before attempting removal from the gelatin. The single walled cylinder looked very nice at a 4.25 E.M.. We then started printing two walled cylinders. At slow speeds the slurry was being dragged and therefore deformed the print. Doubling the speed seems to help this a lot. Also, we began heating the slurries before printing. This eliminates the need to add water (diluting the solution)and helps keep the slurries very uniform. It does cross link soon after it heats, so it should be used shortly after removing heat. We may even heat the slurry slightly during prints. <br />
<br />
We started with a 4.25 E.M. two walled print. It turned out almost twice as tall as the design, however it was structurally sound. 2.25 E.M. has next to no shape to it and 2.5<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the cross-linked alginate will have the same volume as the volume of dissolved alginate printed. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/16/2014 - 6/19/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/9/2014 - 6/13/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/2/2014 - 6/6/2014==<br />
<br />
==5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014==<br />
This is the beginning of 8 weeks of work on the bioprinter. I am starting by exploring the use of custom G-Code for the bioprinter. Slic3r seems as though it may be too complicated for the first few prints that we will attempt. It also allows the user to set the start point easily and precisely, which is advantageous when we may be printing into containers in specific places on the bed. <br />
<br />
Also, I printed a small stand to hold the jello-shot cups (which serve as print containers).<br />
<br />
Testing has begun using white pudding extruded into green Jello-brand jello prepared with the instructions on the box. The tests help refine the extrusion rates where I found that .125mm E per 10mm travel was a pretty good value. Currently, the printer is not very accurate due to the axis tilting upon the change of direction. I hope to change the axis to linear bearings.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128433RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-25T19:45:15Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/25/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Linear Bearings.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before attempting removal from the gelatin. The single walled cylinder looked very nice at a 4.25 E.M.. We then started printing two walled cylinders. At slow speeds the slurry was being dragged and therefore deformed the print. Doubling the speed seems to help this a lot. Also, we began heating the slurries before printing. This eliminates the need to add water (diluting the solution)and helps keep the slurries very uniform. It does cross link soon after it heats, so it should be used shortly after removing heat. We may even heat the slurry slightly during prints. <br />
<br />
We started with a 4.25 E.M. two walled print. It turned out almost twice as tall as the design, however it was structurally sound.<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the cross-linked alginate will have the same volume as the volume of dissolved alginate printed. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/16/2014 - 6/19/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/9/2014 - 6/13/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/2/2014 - 6/6/2014==<br />
<br />
==5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014==<br />
This is the beginning of 8 weeks of work on the bioprinter. I am starting by exploring the use of custom G-Code for the bioprinter. Slic3r seems as though it may be too complicated for the first few prints that we will attempt. It also allows the user to set the start point easily and precisely, which is advantageous when we may be printing into containers in specific places on the bed. <br />
<br />
Also, I printed a small stand to hold the jello-shot cups (which serve as print containers).<br />
<br />
Testing has begun using white pudding extruded into green Jello-brand jello prepared with the instructions on the box. The tests help refine the extrusion rates where I found that .125mm E per 10mm travel was a pretty good value. Currently, the printer is not very accurate due to the axis tilting upon the change of direction. I hope to change the axis to linear bearings.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128432RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-25T19:42:53Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/25/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Linear Bearings.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before attempting removal from the gelatin. The single walled cylinder looked very nice at a 4.25 e.m.. We then started printing two walled cylinders. At slow speeds the slurry was being dragged and therefore deformed the print. Doubling the speed seems to help this a lot. Also, we began heating the slurries before printing. This eliminates the need to add water (diluting the solution)and helps keep the slurries very uniform. It does cross link soon after it heats, so it should be printed in soon. A two-perimeter print at 4.5 was very sturdy, however it was almost twice the desired height.<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the cross-linked alginate will have the same volume as the volume of dissolved alginate printed. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/16/2014 - 6/19/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/9/2014 - 6/13/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/2/2014 - 6/6/2014==<br />
<br />
==5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014==<br />
This is the beginning of 8 weeks of work on the bioprinter. I am starting by exploring the use of custom G-Code for the bioprinter. Slic3r seems as though it may be too complicated for the first few prints that we will attempt. It also allows the user to set the start point easily and precisely, which is advantageous when we may be printing into containers in specific places on the bed. <br />
<br />
Also, I printed a small stand to hold the jello-shot cups (which serve as print containers).<br />
<br />
Testing has begun using white pudding extruded into green Jello-brand jello prepared with the instructions on the box. The tests help refine the extrusion rates where I found that .125mm E per 10mm travel was a pretty good value. Currently, the printer is not very accurate due to the axis tilting upon the change of direction. I hope to change the axis to linear bearings.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128431RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-25T19:34:54Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/25/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Linear Bearings.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before attempting removal from the gelatin. The single walled cylinder looked very nice at a 4.25 e.m.. We then started printing two walled cylinders. At slow speeds the slurry was being dragged and therefore deforming the print. Doubling the speed seems to help this a lot. Also, we began heating the slurries before printing. This eliminates the need to add water (diluting the solution)and helps keep the slurries very uniform. It does cross link soon after it heats, so it should be printed in soon.<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the cross-linked alginate will have the same volume as the volume of dissolved alginate printed. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/16/2014 - 6/19/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/9/2014 - 6/13/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/2/2014 - 6/6/2014==<br />
<br />
==5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014==<br />
This is the beginning of 8 weeks of work on the bioprinter. I am starting by exploring the use of custom G-Code for the bioprinter. Slic3r seems as though it may be too complicated for the first few prints that we will attempt. It also allows the user to set the start point easily and precisely, which is advantageous when we may be printing into containers in specific places on the bed. <br />
<br />
Also, I printed a small stand to hold the jello-shot cups (which serve as print containers).<br />
<br />
Testing has begun using white pudding extruded into green Jello-brand jello prepared with the instructions on the box. The tests help refine the extrusion rates where I found that .125mm E per 10mm travel was a pretty good value. Currently, the printer is not very accurate due to the axis tilting upon the change of direction. I hope to change the axis to linear bearings.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128416RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-25T15:31:14Z<p>462RUG: /* 5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Complete Setup 1.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the entire volume extruded is going to be cross linked into the actual structure of the print. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/16/2014 - 6/19/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/9/2014 - 6/13/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/2/2014 - 6/6/2014==<br />
<br />
==5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014==<br />
This is the beginning of 8 weeks of work on the bioprinter. I am starting by exploring the use of custom G-Code for the bioprinter. Slic3r seems as though it may be too complicated for the first few prints that we will attempt. It also allows the user to set the start point easily and precisely, which is advantageous when we may be printing into containers in specific places on the bed. <br />
<br />
Also, I printed a small stand to hold the jello-shot cups (which serve as print containers).<br />
<br />
Testing has begun using white pudding extruded into green Jello-brand jello prepared with the instructions on the box. The tests help refine the extrusion rates where I found that .125mm E per 10mm travel was a pretty good value. Currently, the printer is not very accurate due to the axis tilting upon the change of direction. I hope to change the axis to linear bearings.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128415RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-25T15:29:27Z<p>462RUG: /* 5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Complete Setup 1.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the entire volume extruded is going to be cross linked into the actual structure of the print. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/16/2014 - 6/19/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/9/2014 - 6/13/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/2/2014 - 6/6/2014==<br />
<br />
==5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014==<br />
This is the beginning of 8 weeks of work on the bioprinter. I am starting by exploring the use of custom G-Code for the bioprinter. Slic3r seems as though it may be too complicated for the first few prints that we will attempt. It also allows the user to set the start point easily and precisely, which is advantageous when we may be printing into containers in specific places on the bed. <br />
<br />
Also, I printed a small stand to hold the jello-shot cups (which serve as print containers).<br />
<br />
Testing has begun using white pudding extruded into green Jello-brand jello prepared with the instructions on the box. The tests help refine the extrusion rates. Currently, the printer is not very accurate due to the axis tilting upon the change of direction. We hope to change the axis to linear bearings.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128414RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-25T14:28:19Z<p>462RUG: /* Blog Entries */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Complete Setup 1.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the entire volume extruded is going to be cross linked into the actual structure of the print. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/16/2014 - 6/19/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/9/2014 - 6/13/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/2/2014 - 6/6/2014==<br />
<br />
==5/27/2014 - 5/30/2014==</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128413RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-25T14:25:42Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/25/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Complete Setup 1.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
Print testing trials began with a single perimeter, non-spiraled cylinder and a black, flat tip, 22 gauge needle. They were let to sit for about 15 minutes before<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the entire volume extruded is going to be cross linked into the actual structure of the print. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128410RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-25T12:49:44Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/24/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Complete Setup 1.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the entire volume extruded is going to be cross linked into the actual structure of the print. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128409RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-25T12:47:08Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/24/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Complete Setup 1.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the entire volume extruded is going to be cross linked into the actual structure of the print. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume after a short period of time. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand. Also, we believe that the gelatin slurry mix is less crucial as we initially thought. <br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128408RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-25T12:42:28Z<p>462RUG: /* Blog Entries */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Complete Setup 1.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/25/2014==<br />
<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the entire volume extruded is going to be cross linked into the actual structure of the print. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume after a short period of time. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128407RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-25T12:41:41Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/24/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Complete Setup 1.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the entire volume extruded is going to be cross linked into the actual structure of the print. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume after a short period of time. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value. After printing a .6ml, 3x extrusion multiplier spiral cylinder, we recorded an approximate actual volume of .4ml. Tomorrow we will try a 4.5 e.m., even though it is less than the 5 e.m. that seemed to still be a little bit low. We will continue to print solids until we can obtain stable results that do not drag in solution.<br />
<br />
On another note, we set up a heated bed off of the RAMPS board to use as a heater that should serve as a hot plate to melt gelatin. It should be a good addition to have when it comes time to print more delicate structures that cant necessarily be separated by hand.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128324RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-24T17:27:14Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/24/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Complete Setup 1.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the entire volume extruded is going to be cross linked into the actual structure of the print. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume after a short period of time. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data.<br />
<br />
Next, we tried to print a spiral cylinder with the standard extrusion multiplier for volume measurement. Since Repetier outputs an approximate volume, we figured we could compare to this value and see if a proper comparison can be made from it. It is difficult to measure the volume of the printed part to such a high degree of accuracy with a small volume, however we may try larger prints once the multiplier is around where we need it to begin to refine the value.<br />
<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128300RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-24T14:17:12Z<p>462RUG: /* Blog Entries */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the entire volume extruded is going to be cross linked into the actual structure of the print. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume after a short period of time. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data. <br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
- John -<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
- John -</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128299RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-24T14:16:47Z<p>462RUG: /* Blog Entries */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/24/2014==<br />
After looking at yesterday's prints, it looks like a higher extrusion rate is the way to go. I realized that it is unlikely that the entire volume extruded is going to be cross linked into the actual structure of the print. Therefore, we need a way to measure the ratio of alginate extruded to alginate cross linked to make adjustments to the extrusion multiplier (without just guessing). Initially, I attempted to extrude 5 ml of alginate into some calcium/gelatin slurry, where I would then separate the alginate and measure its volume after a short period of time. It proved to be difficult to separate the alginate from the slurry and it seems we would have very inaccurate results if the ratio were to be calculated from this data. <br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
John<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.<br />
<br />
John</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128298RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-24T13:11:21Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/23/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible besides the occasional spiral strand.<br />
<br />
Today, We are testing gelatin concentrations with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints (it is important to note that the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point) to see if these solutions could support a print. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g. not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128297RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-24T13:05:31Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/23/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible. One of the prints had a spiraled shape to it, indicating the alginate was being dragged along during printing.<br />
<br />
We are testing gelatin concentrations further with 8.125, 8.75, and 9.375 percent w/v solutions. After about 4 hours or so of sitting in our ~60 degree room, they began to solidify. A little stirring and adding some water to the higher concentrated solutions seemed to bring them back to a good consistency. Unfortunately stirring and adding water introduces lots of air bubbles into the gelatin. It doesn't seem that this changes its physical properties, however it looks more like foam after stirring. <br />
<br />
We decided to run a few test prints, however the consistency of the three solutions was almost equal at this point. We first tried with basic, 2 or 3 perimeter cylinders. These dragged the print around as usual, making a large blob of weak alginate in the center. We then tried a continuous, spiral cylinder with one perimeter and a larger, 16 gauge tapered nozzle instead of a needle tip. This seemed promising, however, upon removal, the print broke up into a bunch of coils of alginate, indicating no real layer adhesion. We then conducted an identical test to leave overnight, and two more with a typical 21 gauge syringe needle tip coated in spray on water proof coating (used for shoes and fabrics - it was worth a shot to try to reduce the globing of alginate on the tip). These created the same, dragged prints as usual, but there was no alginate stuck to the tip after these prints. Therefore, I think that it is the print settings (e.g not a high enough extrusion rate), that is causing the dragging instead of the print, ''not'' the globbed tip. I do think that it contributed to the dragging, so it will be beneficial to continue to apply some sort of hydrophobic coating to the needles. Further investigation will have to be conducted to find more bio-compatible solutions to this problem.<br />
<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128206RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-23T13:20:00Z<p>462RUG: /* Blog Entries */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/23/2014==<br />
This morning, we checked on the prints from Friday. The top layer of gelatin seemed to solidify, but the rest (mostly) retained the apple sauce consistency desired. The prints on the other hand were very hard to separate, as they broke apart into small strands. Also, no real structure was visible. One of the prints had a spiraled shape to it, indicating the alginate was being dragged along during printing.<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128205RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-23T13:15:36Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/20/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
<br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128204RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-23T13:14:35Z<p>462RUG: /* 6/20/2014 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry was also much clearer. We are unsure if it is the bloom value of the Sigma brand that could be creating this difference in behavior (the Knox brand is about 225 bloom), or manufacturing differences between food-grade gelatin and 'scientific' grade gelatin. Either way, we plan to use Sigma Aldrich gelatin from this point forward, as it seems to produce much more consistent results. <br />
We printed two cylinders into the Sigma gelatin. The initial cylinder had 10 perimeters, which ended up globing up the nozzle tip and prevented any real precise extrusion. The other cylinder had 2 perimeters and seemed to hold its shape pretty well.<br />
The prints are remaining in the gelatin until Monday (to ensure good cross-linking), where we will attempt to investigate the prints.<br />
Next week we will likely be refining the recipe for the gelatin slurries in hopes to find one that is supporting of the gel.</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=128202RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-23T12:45:36Z<p>462RUG: </p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Blog Entries=<br />
==6/20/2014==<br />
Today, we made a two gelatin slurries, one with store-bought Knox gelatin, and the other with Sigma Aldrich, 300-bloom gelatin. Both 40ml slurries had .2g of NaCl added along with the standard 100 mM CaCl2. Salt apparently slows the solidification of the gel, which is what we currently struggle to prevent.<br />
However the Knox brand solidified as usual, yet the Sigma brand maintained a medium viscosity for long enough for us to print. The Sigma brand gelatin slurry also was much clearer in color and</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About&diff=128201RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About2014-06-23T12:37:30Z<p>462RUG: /* Current Work */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Project Summary=<br />
==Background==<br />
This project was suggested by David Saint John in January 2014. The original intent was to convert the printer to RAMPS_1.4 allowing the use of typical RepRap software tool chains. Due to the syringe-based extruder, we thought it would be very useful for 3D bioprinting applications.<br />
<br />
==Current Work==<br />
Work is currently underway to create a versatile platform for syringe based applications. The hardware is well calibrated and slic3r seems to be working well. Various hydrogels are being printed for experimentation. See [http://reprap.org/wiki/RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research Research] for more details.<br />
<br />
=Technical Information=<br />
==Printer Hardware==<br />
The current printer used for this project is a modified Fab@Home platform. The original printer was built to [http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fab%40Home:Model_1_Overview Fab@Home Model 1] specifications. As of the summer of 2014, the printer was equipped with linear ball bearings on the X and Y axes in place of the bushings for reduced friction. The friction was causing the axes to lean in the desired direction before actual motion of the toolhead was achieved. This created inaccurate prints and sometimes bound the axes entirely.<br />
==Electronics==<br />
The printer had the original electronics installed, however they were never tested. Instead, RAMPS_1.4 electronics were installed due to the availability of the hardware and many open-sourced control methods. The tasks required for bioprinting can be very specific, therefore using hardware that allowed the use of custom G-Code was desirable. The current firmware is Marlin with modifications on the steps/mm settings and endstop booleans. See here for the current configuration file: [[File:Marlin-Marlin_v1_Fab.zip]]. Note: The motors on the Fab@Home Model 1 seem to run best at 1/8 stepping ratio (determined by the jumpers under the drivers on the RAMPS board). They should also be driven slower, approx. <500 mm/min.<br />
<br />
==Extruders/Tool Heads==<br />
This particular Fab@Home was built with a single extruder and is fully operational. A dual extruder is currently in development using non-captive stepper motors from [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10848 Sparkfun].</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About&diff=128031RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About2014-06-19T17:32:04Z<p>462RUG: /* Current Work */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Project Summary=<br />
==Background==<br />
This project was suggested by David Saint John in January 2014. The original intent was to convert the printer to RAMPS_1.4 allowing the use of typical RepRap software tool chains. Due to the syringe-based extruder, we thought it would be very useful for 3D bioprinting applications.<br />
<br />
==Current Work==<br />
Work is currently underway to create a versatile platform for syringe based applications. The hardware and tool chain are well calibrated. We plan to print alginate into a gelatin slurry. The alginate interacts with calcium chloride in the gelatin and the alginate crosslinks. Then, the gelatin can be removed, leaving behind a 3D printed alginate structure. Currently, gelatin recipes are being tested to optimize supporting capabilities and to reduce crosslinking, which results in a loss in desirable viscus characteristics.<br />
<br />
=Technical Information=<br />
==Printer Hardware==<br />
The current printer used for this project is a modified Fab@Home platform. The original printer was built to [http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fab%40Home:Model_1_Overview Fab@Home Model 1] specifications. As of the summer of 2014, the printer was equipped with linear ball bearings on the X and Y axes in place of the bushings for reduced friction. The friction was causing the axes to lean in the desired direction before actual motion of the toolhead was achieved. This created inaccurate prints and sometimes bound the axes entirely.<br />
==Electronics==<br />
The printer had the original electronics installed, however they were never tested. Instead, RAMPS_1.4 electronics were installed due to the availability of the hardware and many open-sourced control methods. The tasks required for bioprinting can be very specific, therefore using hardware that allowed the use of custom G-Code was desirable. The current firmware is Marlin with modifications on the steps/mm settings and endstop booleans. See here for the current configuration file: [[File:Marlin-Marlin_v1_Fab.zip]]. Note: The motors on the Fab@Home Model 1 seem to run best at 1/8 stepping ratio (determined by the jumpers under the drivers on the RAMPS board). They should also be driven slower, approx. <500 mm/min.<br />
<br />
==Extruders/Tool Heads==<br />
This particular Fab@Home was built with a single extruder and is fully operational. A dual extruder is currently in development using non-captive stepper motors from [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10848 Sparkfun].</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About&diff=128030RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About2014-06-19T17:31:04Z<p>462RUG: /* Current Work */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Project Summary=<br />
==Background==<br />
This project was suggested by David Saint John in January 2014. The original intent was to convert the printer to RAMPS_1.4 allowing the use of typical RepRap software tool chains. Due to the syringe-based extruder, we thought it would be very useful for 3D bioprinting applications.<br />
<br />
==Current Work==<br />
Work is currently underway to create a versatile platform for syringe based applications. The hardware and tool chain are well calibrated. We plan to print alginate into a gelatin slurry, where the alginate interacts with calcium chloride. Here, the alginate crosslinks, and the gelatin can be removed, leaving behind a 3D printed alginate structure. Currently, gelatin recipes are being tested to optimize supporting capabilities and to reduce crosslinking, which results in a loss in desirable viscus characteristics.<br />
<br />
=Technical Information=<br />
==Printer Hardware==<br />
The current printer used for this project is a modified Fab@Home platform. The original printer was built to [http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fab%40Home:Model_1_Overview Fab@Home Model 1] specifications. As of the summer of 2014, the printer was equipped with linear ball bearings on the X and Y axes in place of the bushings for reduced friction. The friction was causing the axes to lean in the desired direction before actual motion of the toolhead was achieved. This created inaccurate prints and sometimes bound the axes entirely.<br />
==Electronics==<br />
The printer had the original electronics installed, however they were never tested. Instead, RAMPS_1.4 electronics were installed due to the availability of the hardware and many open-sourced control methods. The tasks required for bioprinting can be very specific, therefore using hardware that allowed the use of custom G-Code was desirable. The current firmware is Marlin with modifications on the steps/mm settings and endstop booleans. See here for the current configuration file: [[File:Marlin-Marlin_v1_Fab.zip]]. Note: The motors on the Fab@Home Model 1 seem to run best at 1/8 stepping ratio (determined by the jumpers under the drivers on the RAMPS board). They should also be driven slower, approx. <500 mm/min.<br />
<br />
==Extruders/Tool Heads==<br />
This particular Fab@Home was built with a single extruder and is fully operational. A dual extruder is currently in development using non-captive stepper motors from [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10848 Sparkfun].</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About&diff=128029RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About2014-06-19T17:25:13Z<p>462RUG: /* Background */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Project Summary=<br />
==Background==<br />
This project was suggested by David Saint John in January 2014. The original intent was to convert the printer to RAMPS_1.4 allowing the use of typical RepRap software tool chains. Due to the syringe-based extruder, we thought it would be very useful for 3D bioprinting applications.<br />
<br />
==Current Work==<br />
<br />
=Technical Information=<br />
==Printer Hardware==<br />
The current printer used for this project is a modified Fab@Home platform. The original printer was built to [http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fab%40Home:Model_1_Overview Fab@Home Model 1] specifications. As of the summer of 2014, the printer was equipped with linear ball bearings on the X and Y axes in place of the bushings for reduced friction. The friction was causing the axes to lean in the desired direction before actual motion of the toolhead was achieved. This created inaccurate prints and sometimes bound the axes entirely.<br />
==Electronics==<br />
The printer had the original electronics installed, however they were never tested. Instead, RAMPS_1.4 electronics were installed due to the availability of the hardware and many open-sourced control methods. The tasks required for bioprinting can be very specific, therefore using hardware that allowed the use of custom G-Code was desirable. The current firmware is Marlin with modifications on the steps/mm settings and endstop booleans. See here for the current configuration file: [[File:Marlin-Marlin_v1_Fab.zip]]. Note: The motors on the Fab@Home Model 1 seem to run best at 1/8 stepping ratio (determined by the jumpers under the drivers on the RAMPS board). They should also be driven slower, approx. <500 mm/min.<br />
<br />
==Extruders/Tool Heads==<br />
This particular Fab@Home was built with a single extruder and is fully operational. A dual extruder is currently in development using non-captive stepper motors from [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10848 Sparkfun].</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About&diff=128028RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About2014-06-19T17:24:32Z<p>462RUG: /* Background */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Project Summary=<br />
==Background==<br />
This project was suggested by David Saint John in January 2014. The original intent was to convert the printer to RAMPS_1.4 allowing the use of typical RepRap software tool chains. Due to the syringe-based extruder, we thought it would be very useful for 3D bioprinting applications. Work is currently underway to create a versatile platform for syringe based applications.<br />
<br />
==Current Work==<br />
<br />
=Technical Information=<br />
==Printer Hardware==<br />
The current printer used for this project is a modified Fab@Home platform. The original printer was built to [http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fab%40Home:Model_1_Overview Fab@Home Model 1] specifications. As of the summer of 2014, the printer was equipped with linear ball bearings on the X and Y axes in place of the bushings for reduced friction. The friction was causing the axes to lean in the desired direction before actual motion of the toolhead was achieved. This created inaccurate prints and sometimes bound the axes entirely.<br />
==Electronics==<br />
The printer had the original electronics installed, however they were never tested. Instead, RAMPS_1.4 electronics were installed due to the availability of the hardware and many open-sourced control methods. The tasks required for bioprinting can be very specific, therefore using hardware that allowed the use of custom G-Code was desirable. The current firmware is Marlin with modifications on the steps/mm settings and endstop booleans. See here for the current configuration file: [[File:Marlin-Marlin_v1_Fab.zip]]. Note: The motors on the Fab@Home Model 1 seem to run best at 1/8 stepping ratio (determined by the jumpers under the drivers on the RAMPS board). They should also be driven slower, approx. <500 mm/min.<br />
<br />
==Extruders/Tool Heads==<br />
This particular Fab@Home was built with a single extruder and is fully operational. A dual extruder is currently in development using non-captive stepper motors from [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10848 Sparkfun].</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About&diff=127984RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About2014-06-18T13:47:35Z<p>462RUG: /* Project Summary */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Project Summary=<br />
==Background==<br />
This project was suggested by David Saint John in January 2014. The original intent was to convert the printer to RAMPS_1.4 allowing the use of typical RepRap software tool chains. Due to the syringe-based extruder, we thought it would be very applicable to (INC)<br />
==Current Work==<br />
<br />
=Technical Information=<br />
==Printer Hardware==<br />
The current printer used for this project is a modified Fab@Home platform. The original printer was built to [http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fab%40Home:Model_1_Overview Fab@Home Model 1] specifications. As of the summer of 2014, the printer was equipped with linear ball bearings on the X and Y axes in place of the bushings for reduced friction. The friction was causing the axes to lean in the desired direction before actual motion of the toolhead was achieved. This created inaccurate prints and sometimes bound the axes entirely.<br />
==Electronics==<br />
The printer had the original electronics installed, however they were never tested. Instead, RAMPS_1.4 electronics were installed due to the availability of the hardware and many open-sourced control methods. The tasks required for bioprinting can be very specific, therefore using hardware that allowed the use of custom G-Code was desirable. The current firmware is Marlin with modifications on the steps/mm settings and endstop booleans. See here for the current configuration file: [[File:Marlin-Marlin_v1_Fab.zip]]. Note: The motors on the Fab@Home Model 1 seem to run best at 1/8 stepping ratio (determined by the jumpers under the drivers on the RAMPS board). They should also be driven slower, approx. <500 mm/min.<br />
<br />
==Extruders/Tool Heads==<br />
This particular Fab@Home was built with a single extruder and is fully operational. A dual extruder is currently in development using non-captive stepper motors from [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10848 Sparkfun].</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home&diff=127983RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home2014-06-18T13:35:24Z<p>462RUG: /* Log */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
This is the page for the State College Rep Rap User Group's (SCRUG) Fab@Home 3D printer that is being converted to print a variety of biological materials. The printer was originally constructed in accordance to the original Fab@Home Model 1 design, incorporating the original electronics and single-syringe tip extruder. The build progress was documented [http://reprap.org/wiki/RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Fab@Home here].<br />
<br />
<br />
=Log=<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable" border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse;<br />
!Date<br />
!Modification / Problem<br />
|-<br />
<br />
<!-- ADD NEW COMMENTS TO THE LOG AFTER THIS LINE --><br />
|-<br />
|6/13/2014<br />
|Up and running very smoothly! Double linear bearings on Y fixed slop on the axis.<br />
|-<br />
|6/9/2014<br />
|Tested with linear bearings on all axes. Good movement, but needs double bearings on Y for proper stability.<br />
|-<br />
|04/22/2014<br />
|Extruder tested and working. Can both extrude and retract water<br />
|-<br />
|03/24/14<br />
|Successful conversion to RAMPS 1.4 electronics with 1/8 step settings and 300 mm/sec speeds. <br />
|-<br />
|02/24/14<br />
|Beginning conversion to RAMPS 1.4<br />
|-<br />
|}</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About&diff=127772RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About2014-06-12T02:27:02Z<p>462RUG: /* Electronics */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Project Summary=<br />
<br />
=Technical Information=<br />
==Printer Hardware==<br />
The current printer used for this project is a modified Fab@Home platform. The original printer was built to [http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fab%40Home:Model_1_Overview Fab@Home Model 1] specifications. As of the summer of 2014, the printer was equipped with linear ball bearings on the X and Y axes in place of the bushings for reduced friction. The friction was causing the axes to lean in the desired direction before actual motion of the toolhead was achieved. This created inaccurate prints and sometimes bound the axes entirely.<br />
==Electronics==<br />
The printer had the original electronics installed, however they were never tested. Instead, RAMPS_1.4 electronics were installed due to the availability of the hardware and many open-sourced control methods. The tasks required for bioprinting can be very specific, therefore using hardware that allowed the use of custom G-Code was desirable. The current firmware is Marlin with modifications on the steps/mm settings and endstop booleans. See here for the current configuration file: [[File:Marlin-Marlin_v1_Fab.zip]]. Note: The motors on the Fab@Home Model 1 seem to run best at 1/8 stepping ratio (determined by the jumpers under the drivers on the RAMPS board). They should also be driven slower, approx. <500 mm/min.<br />
<br />
==Extruders/Tool Heads==<br />
This particular Fab@Home was built with a single extruder and is fully operational. A dual extruder is currently in development using non-captive stepper motors from [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10848 Sparkfun].</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=File:Marlin-Marlin_v1_Fab.zip&diff=127771File:Marlin-Marlin v1 Fab.zip2014-06-12T02:19:32Z<p>462RUG: Marlin configuration for a Fab@Home Model 1 printer</p>
<hr />
<div>Marlin configuration for a Fab@Home Model 1 printer</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About&diff=127770RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About2014-06-12T02:12:10Z<p>462RUG: /* Technical Information */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
__TOC__<br />
<br />
=Project Summary=<br />
<br />
=Technical Information=<br />
==Printer Hardware==<br />
The current printer used for this project is a modified Fab@Home platform. The original printer was built to [http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Fab%40Home:Model_1_Overview Fab@Home Model 1] specifications. As of the summer of 2014, the printer was equipped with linear ball bearings on the X and Y axes in place of the bushings for reduced friction. The friction was causing the axes to lean in the desired direction before actual motion of the toolhead was achieved. This created inaccurate prints and sometimes bound the axes entirely.<br />
==Electronics==<br />
The printer had the original electronics installed, however they were never tested. Instead, RAMPS_1.4 electronics were installed due to the availability of the hardware and many open-sourced control methods. The tasks required for bioprinting can be very specific, therefore using hardware that allowed the use of custom G-Code was desirable. Note: The motors on the Fab@Home Model 1 seem to run best at 1/8 stepping ratio (determined by the jumpers under the drivers on the RAMPS board). They should also be driven slower, approx. <500 mm/min.<br />
==Extruders/Tool Heads==<br />
This particular Fab@Home was built with a single extruder and is fully operational. A dual extruder is currently in development using non-captive stepper motors from [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10848 Sparkfun].</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home&diff=127769RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home2014-06-12T01:33:32Z<p>462RUG: /* Log */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- EXTRUDER SIZE --><br />
|Syringe<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Temperature: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- TEMPERATURE --><br />
| - <noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Design: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- DESIGN --><br />
|Fab@Home<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Electronics: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- ELECTRONICS --><br />
|RAMPS<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Firmware: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- FIRMWARE --><br />
|Marlin<br />
</onlyinclude><br />
|}<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
This is the page for the State College Rep Rap User Group's (SCRUG) Fab@Home 3D printer that is being converted to print a variety of biological materials. The printer was originally constructed in accordance to the original Fab@Home Model 1 design, incorporating the original electronics and single-syringe tip extruder. The build progress was documented [http://reprap.org/wiki/RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Fab@Home here].<br />
<br />
<br />
=Log=<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable" border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse;<br />
!Date<br />
!Modification / Problem<br />
|-<br />
<br />
<!-- ADD NEW COMMENTS TO THE LOG AFTER THIS LINE --><br />
|-<br />
|6/9/2014<br />
|Tested with linear bearings on all axes. Good movement, but needs double bearings on Y for proper stability.<br />
|-<br />
|04/22/2014<br />
|Extruder tested and working. Can both extrude and retract water<br />
|-<br />
|03/24/14<br />
|Successful conversion to RAMPS 1.4 electronics with 1/8 step settings and 300 mm/sec speeds. <br />
|-<br />
|02/24/14<br />
|Beginning conversion to RAMPS 1.4<br />
|-<br />
|}</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Gallery&diff=127710RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Gallery2014-06-10T20:09:11Z<p>462RUG: Created page with "x200px {| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0" |x110px..."</p>
<hr />
<div>[[File:Fabwithjello.jpg|right|thumb|x200px]]<br />
<br />
{| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0"<br />
|[[File:FAB@HOME_LOGOPrototype.png|frameless|x110px]]<br />
|<br />
{|<onlyinclude><br />
<!-- LINK TO THE PRINTER'S PAGE AND PRINTER'S NAME --><br />
|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Color: <br />
</noinclude><br />
<!-- PRINTER'S COLOR --><br />
|Acrylic<br />
<noinclude><br />
|-<br />
|Extruder: <br />
</noinclude><br />
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{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research&diff=127709RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research2014-06-10T20:09:04Z<p>462RUG: Created page with "x200px {| style="border: 1px solid lightgrey;" cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0" |x110px..."</p>
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{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home&diff=127708RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home2014-06-10T20:08:13Z<p>462RUG: </p>
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{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}<br />
<br />
=Introduction=<br />
This is the page for the State College Rep Rap User Group's (SCRUG) Fab@Home 3D printer that is being converted to print a variety of biological materials. The printer was originally constructed in accordance to the original Fab@Home Model 1 design, incorporating the original electronics and single-syringe tip extruder. The build progress was documented [http://reprap.org/wiki/RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/PSU_Fab@Home here].<br />
<br />
<br />
=Log=<br />
<br />
{|class="wikitable" border="1" style="border-collapse:collapse;<br />
!Date<br />
!Modification / Problem<br />
|-<br />
<br />
<!-- ADD NEW COMMENTS TO THE LOG AFTER THIS LINE --><br />
|-<br />
|6/9/2014<br />
|<br />
|-<br />
|04/22/2014<br />
|Extruder tested and working. Can both extrude and retract water<br />
|-<br />
|03/24/14<br />
|Successful conversion to RAMPS 1.4 electronics with 1/8 step settings and 300 mm/sec speeds. <br />
|-<br />
|02/24/14<br />
|Beginning conversion to RAMPS 1.4<br />
|-<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<br />
= Gallery =<br />
<gallery><br />
File:Betaprinter.jpg | Fall 2013<br />
File:Beta2_512.jpg| Spring 2012<br />
File:Unit_Beta.JPG|As of 9/15/11<br />
File:M2_wk6.jpg|Week 6<br />
File:M2_wk4.jpg|Week 4<br />
File:M2_wk2.jpg|Week 2<br />
</gallery></div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About&diff=127707RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About2014-06-10T20:07:53Z<p>462RUG: </p>
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|[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home | BioFab@Home]] <includeonly> <!-- PRINTER'S LOGO --> [[File:Unit_beta_small.png|link=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/PSU_Unit_B|25px|alt=Beta]] </includeonly> <br />
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{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Template:RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/Navbar&diff=127706Template:RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/Navbar2014-06-10T20:07:45Z<p>462RUG: Blanked the page</p>
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[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About | About]]<br />
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[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Research | Research]]<br />
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[[RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About | About]]<br />
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{{RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/Navbar}}</div>462RUGhttps://reprap.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=RUG/Pennsylvania/State_College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About&diff=127702RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Printers/BioFab@Home/About2014-06-10T19:58:20Z<p>462RUG: Created page with "BioFab@Home about page"</p>
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