Digital Designs and Scientific Hardware - Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs - page 167

FIGURE 6.3 Rendered parametric design in OpenSCAD on an open-source optical chopper
wheel with (a) 10 slots, (b) 15 slots and (c) 60 slots.
6.1.2 Open-source 3-D printers
The development of open-source 3-D printers like the RepRap 10 [ 1 ] , the streamlined design of
which as shown in Chapter 5 can be constructed for <$600, have made the cost of rapid pro-
totyping accessible to most university laboratories [ 2 ] . RepRap's open-source and self-replic-
ating nature (approximately 50% of its own parts can be self-printed) makes it an extremely
useful platform for open-source fabrication and maintenance of laboratory equipment. The
printing process for the additive layer manufacture of scientific experimental components dis-
cussed in this chapter is a sequential layer deposition. The RepRap extruder intakes a ilament
of the working material, 11 heats it, and extrudes it through a nozzle where deposits a 2-D layer
of the working material, then the Z (vertical) axis will raise, and the extruder will deposit an-
other layer on top of the first. In this way, it can build three-dimensional models from a series
of two-dimensional layers [ 3 ] . Figure 6.4(a) shows the detail of a RepRap printing out a com-
ponent of a filter wheel system, 12 which will be discussed in more detail below. Figure 6.4(b)
shows another component of the same filter wheel printing, and also displays the assembly