
CMU Engineers Find Innovative Way to Make a Low-Cost 3D Bioprinter - walterbell
https://healthtechmagazine.net/article/2018/07/cmu-engineers-find-innovative-way-make-low-cost-3d-bioprinter
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iancmceachern
If you are hoping to make one of these for yourself we just started selling
kits for this, and other bioprinters on our website at
[https://www.bioprintersinc.com/product-page/bioprinter-
carne...](https://www.bioprintersinc.com/product-page/bioprinter-carnegie-
mellonon-university-paper-based)

~~~
dx87
Out of curiosity, do you think this technology could be used for tattoos? I've
never used a 3d printer so I don't know all the technical details, but it
seems like it would be possible to provide a 3d image of your arm and have the
syringe create a tattoo one poke at a time.

~~~
justinclift
Well, current CNC machines can use a touch probe to pretty accurately map the
height of a given surface:

[http://community.carbide3d.com/t/using-ugs-probe-
helper/8823...](http://community.carbide3d.com/t/using-ugs-probe-
helper/8823/4)

That approach could be used to build a useful representation of the arm/body
area needing work.

The actual injection bit I have no idea though. Maybe mount ing a real tattoo
gun and hooking up the enable/disable spindle pins to it would work.

Seems like some people have already been down a similar path before:

[https://www.instructables.com/id/3D-PRINTER-X-TATTOO-
MACHINE...](https://www.instructables.com/id/3D-PRINTER-X-TATTOO-MACHINE/)

[https://makezine.com/2016/08/09/are-robots-the-future-of-
the...](https://makezine.com/2016/08/09/are-robots-the-future-of-the-tattoo-
industry/)

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gene-h
Here's an article with pictures of their 3d printer[0]. The TL;DR is that they
mounted a syringe pump on a 3d printer.

Aside from that, I'm curious as to what advantages aside from being cheap this
printing process has over inkjetting. We can already use piezoelectric inkjets
to spray hydrogel and in fact inkjet based Connex 3d printer use a gel as
support material. A quick google search also reveals that gels with a similar
composition(PEGDA) to this support material have been used in tissue culture
research.

Honestly, I think we could be making a lot more progress in bioprinting if
someone could make an open source kit for driving and mounting piezoelectric
inkjet heads from 2d printers on a hobbyist grade 3d printer. In fact open
source inkjet 3d printers have already been made[2], but no one has made a kit
for making them. Although this might not be possible due to patents on inkjet
drive circuitry.

[0][https://www.roboticstomorrow.com/article/2018/05/carnegie-
me...](https://www.roboticstomorrow.com/article/2018/05/carnegie-mellon-
designs-low-cost-high-efficiency-3d-bioprinter/12016)
[1][http://www.fupress.net/index.php/ijae/article/view/13200](http://www.fupress.net/index.php/ijae/article/view/13200)
[2][http://cfg.mit.edu/content/multifab-machine-vision-
assisted-...](http://cfg.mit.edu/content/multifab-machine-vision-assisted-
platform-multi-material-3d-printing)

~~~
trhway
i'd think that there would be difference in mechanical (and may be
thermoelectric) stress that cells (or protein solution, etc.) is getting
subjected to when applied by piezoelectric inkjet head. Piezoelectric inkjet
head application though should be more precise probably.

With regard to extruder printers like MakerBot - putting the cell culture
right into the extruder head and letting the filament serve as the pusher may
just work without using syringe, etc..

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rbanffy
I wonder when will I be able to print a brain expansion.

