Old Inkjet Becomes New Bio-Materials Printer

MikeChino writes "Instructables member Patrik has successfully transformed an old HP5150 inkjet printer into a DIY bioprinter. To do this he removed the plastic covers and panels and rewired the paper handling mechanism. Then he prepped ink cartridges to be able to handle biological materials by opening the lid, removing the ink, and washing it out with deionized water. For his first experiment, he printed a simple solution of arabinose onto filter paper."

Comments

Isn't the goal to print live cells?

[msauve]

My understanding is that inkjets work in one of two ways, either boiling the ink in the nozzles to make them squirt, or subjecting the ink to extreme pressure using piezo. What effect would that have on trying to print (presumably live) cells?

Re:Isn't the goal to print live cells?

[WillAffleckUW]

We use the print heads to deliver specific measurements of various biological and chemical liquids in our labs here at the UW in Seattle.

Been doing it for years. I remember a seminar around 2005 was the first I saw, but it might precede then.

Thermal or Piezo?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Aside from the ugly business of working around all the annoying interlocks that inkjets have for atypical paper feed/consumables condition/problems that exist only in their own imagination/etc. which generally stop the printer dead, regardless of how mechanically healthy it is; a problem that is annoying, but solvable with sufficient electronics hackery skill, I'd be curious to know how well biological 'inks', or any other not-formulated-for-the-purpose materials deal with the inkjet mechanism.

In piezolelectric inkjet printers, an electrically actuated piezo element provides the slight expansion necessary to shove a droplet of ink out of the nozzle. I'd assume that anything that is tolerant of small(but high frequency, a piezo head can shove out some tens of thousands of droplets per second, and at fair speed, so there are probably stresses that particularly whiny and structurally complex organic molecules can't handle) pressure waves should be fine.

However, particularly among consumer cheapies, thermal inkjets have become quite common: these use a pulse of current across a resistive element to vaporize part of the ink, the expansion of which drives the remaining ink out of the chamber and toward the target. The amount of heat is small in absolute terms(the vaporization chambers are constructed by photolithiographic techniques, to give a sense of scale; but enough heat to flash-vaporize ink is quite probably enough heat to denature common proteins and/or turn common biological materials into a layer of gooey carbon gunk that clogs the print head in short order.

Any word on whether piezo printers are best for this application, or does thermal work much better than I would naively expect?

Re:Thermal or Piezo?

[PatrikD2964]

Yes, thermal does work much better than you would natively expect? In fact, other research groups have specifically looked for heat shock effects on live cells after printing using thermal inkjet, and found very little sign of any. Thermal and piezo printers both seem to work well to print live cells, although occasionally you hear one side claim that the other's printer technology doesn't work (Thermal printer will cook the cell! Piezo printers use the same frequencies as used to sonicate cells!)

Patents Are The Problem

[LuxuryYacht]

Inkjets have been used for years to print living cells and also the scaffolding for cells to adhere to. The problem isn't so much the tech but the sea of patents blocking anyone from bringing a complete system to market. When this problem is solved look for rapid progress on many fronts. Until then maybe it will only be available in countries that favor technological progress over nurturing an obsessive compulsion to hoard money that goes unused.

Patents are the problem with tissue engineering, just as it is with other 3D print applications. I'm not against patents. It's just that the current way it's being run isn't working to help move tech progress forward, it only helps a few to make money and also keep control over the rate of progress.

Thanks

[PPH]

Found your printer on Google. Stand by for some Ebola.

Epson interlocks

[Okian Warrior]

Epson printers (and most inkjet printers in general) have a single photo-interrupter that detects proper paper feed. These are simple units - not the complex photocopiers in your workplace.

In the case of Epson, once the motor starts the paper has to trip the photo-interrupter within a window of some milliseconds (like - between 1/2 and 1 second) or the unit will throw a paper jam error.

After removing all the gears and rollers in the back of the printer, you have the photo-interrupter in hand, still wired to the unit. An easy way to use it is to make a "carrier board" on which to place your medium (filter paper, for instance). Put a notch in the front corner of the carrier so that when the first part of the carrier goes through the paper feed it doesn't trip the interrupter, but past the notch it does. If you cut your notch to the right length the timing is obeyed and the carrier is processed as a piece of paper.

(IOW, the leading edge of the carrier is 8" wide, because a 1/2" strip is cut from one side. Two inches further in the paper is 8 1/2" wide. The photo-interrupter is placed so that the notch doesn't interrupt, but the full width does.)

The print head rides above the paper surface roughly .06" (varies with printer, and is adjustable on some printers), so you may need to raise the print head a little. A dremel tool cutoff wheel and some washers for spacing will work here.