Open Source Completely 3-D Printable Centrifuge

Abstract

Centrifuges are commonly required devices in medical diagnostics facilities as well as scientific laboratories. Although there are commercial and open source centrifuges, the costs of the former and the required electricity to operate the latter limit accessibility in resource-constrained settings. There is a need for low-cost, human-powered, verified, and reliable lab-scale centrifuges. This study provides the designs for a low-cost 100% 3-D printed centrifuge, which can be fabricated on any low-cost RepRap-class (self-replicating rapid prototyper) fused filament fabrication (FFF)- or fused particle fabrication (FPF)-based 3-D printer. In addition, validation procedures are provided using a web camera and free and open source software. This paper provides the complete open source plans, including instructions for the fabrication and operation of a hand-powered centrifuge. This study successfully tested and validated the instrument, which can be operated anywhere in the world with no electricity inputs, obtaining a radial velocity of over 1750 rpm and over 50 N of relative centrifugal force. Using commercial filament, the instrument costs about U.S. $25, which is less than half of all commercially available systems. However, the costs can be dropped further using recycled plastics on open source systems for over 99% savings. The results are discussed in the context of resource-constrained medical and scientific facilities.

Economic savings for scientific free and open source technology: A review

“…There are also more complex fully 3-D printable devices that can print in place like a labjack or need only a modest amount of Lego-block like assembly (e.g. a centrifuge [51] ). In general, it takes less than 1 min to load an stl, have it sliced in an open source slicing software like Cura of Slic3r, and click print (it should be noted, that large complex designs take longer to slice and may need many components printed separately).…”

Low-Cost Open Source Ultrasound-Sensing Based Navigational Support for the Visually Impaired

“…This is clearly seen in the development of the open source self-replicating rapid prototyper (RepRap) 3-D printer project [46,47,48], which radically reduced the cost of additive manufacturing (AM) machines [49] as well as products that can be manufactured using them [50,51,52] including scientific tools [42,53,54,55,56,57], consumer goods [58,59,60,61,62,63], and adaptive aids [64]. In general, these economic savings are greater for the higher percentage of the components able to be 3-D printed [65,66].…”

Takeaways from Mobile DNA Barcoding with BentoLab and MinION

“…We did not test the Flongle for this study as the R10.3 chemistry is presently limited to MinION flow cells. Nevertheless, the field of on-site nanopore barcoding is rapidly growing, and researchers are increasingly finding creative ways to reduce costs, such as 3D-printing of centrifuges to complement spin-column kit extractions [ 79 , 80 , 81 ]. We expect that as novel techniques emerge and technologies are refined, the cost of in situ nanopore barcoding is likely to fall even more in the near future.…”