Team:Cambridge-JIC/3D Printing
Printing in 3D
© All About 3D Printing, 2015
The majority of the microscope parts were printed using a MakerBot Replicator Mini and an Ultimaker 2. These have RRPs of around £1,200 and £1,300 respectively, making them the most expensive aspect of the microscope project. However, this is relatively cheap in the context of standard laboratory hardware and once purchased, it can also be used for plenty of other projects.
The printer has 200 micron layer resolution. This is sufficient for the detail of the microscope chassis, optics bench parts and stage. The much finer detail of the Epi-illumination cube means that a printer with higher resolution may be necessary. As the name suggests, the printer is relatively small. It has a build volume of 10.0cm W, 10.0cm D and 12.5cm H. It comes with its own printing interface software, and is compatible with .stl files.
