We have the Ultra-microscope II in our facility and would like to 3D print some custom holders. Anyone has experience with good materials to use? We are using for most cases Ethyl cinnamate as imaging media.
Thanks
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We’ve 3D printed numerous holders for our UltraMicroscope-II and the approach we’ve taken to test materials is to get some scraps and dunk them overnight in the solvent in question (in our case, dibenzyl ether). Some materials melt, others don’t, and we use the latter.
We haven’t tried Ethyl cinnamate, but for DBE we’ve found the following:
When I used to work at Rockefeller’s imaging core, we printed on a Projet 3510 HD Plus ( http://www.3dsystems.com/3d-printers/professional/projet-hd-3500-plus ), and the materials we used to 3D print are called Visijet M3 Crystal, or Visijet M3 X:
http://www.3dsystems.com/materials/visijet-m3-crystal
http://www.3dsystems.com/materials/visijet-m3-x
We also tried a version of these resins that was black, but the coloring leached out of the material, darkening the DBE
At my current job at the Unviersity of North Carolina, I 3D print using a Form2 3D printer (https://formlabs.com/3d-printers/tech-specs/ ), using clear acrylic resin. It holds up well to the DBE for a several weeks, but then, thin components start to get warped. My approach is to just print new ones, since it is so cheap. I tried other plastics (not sure what they were called) with the dunking approach and some of them turned into goop.
Lavision makes their own holders out of polyoxymethylene, but I don’t know of cheap way to print in that material (if you do, please let me know).
Note that you typically cannot 3D-print threads (the precision needed is higher than a typical printer), so you’ll need to buy a tap to put threads in the holders for screws.
Finally, if you have a Lavision light-sheet, I wrote a guide for the system that you might find useful:
https://doi.org/10.17615/C69M15 (PDF version, along with 3D design files for holders).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK536385/ (HTML version)
Feel fre to contact me off-list for more support: pablo_ariel@med.unc.edu
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Hi Pablo that is great advice and information I will try those on ethyl cinnamate . And I already downloaded the guide is great specially for us core facilities running the UMII
Cheers
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For the mesoSPIM project (mesospim.org), we use 3D-printed sample holders made of Polyamide PA 2200 ( see here: https://proto3000.com/materials/pa-2200 ) in combination with ECi, BABB, and DBE. The parts are stable with no degradation at all. PA2200 (nylon) is very resistant in all kinds of solvent unless you put it in a strong acid.
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Thanks ffvoigt I will try this seems to be a good inexpensive option
cheers
Which 3D-printer are you using for printing the PA2200?