Abstract
Open source hardware has the potential to revolutionise the way we build scientific instruments; with the advent of readily available 3D printers, mechanical designs can now be shared, improved, and replicated faster and more easily than ever before. However, printed parts are typically plastic and often perform poorly compared to traditionally machined mechanisms. We have overcome many of the limitations of 3D printed mechanisms by exploiting the compliance of the plastic to produce a monolithic 3D printed flexure translation stage, capable of sub-micron-scale motion over a range of 8 × 8 × 4 mm. This requires minimal post-print clean-up and can be automated with readily available stepper motors. The resulting plastic composite structure is very stiff and exhibits remarkably low drift, moving less than 20 μm over the course of a week, without temperature stabilisation. This enables us to construct a miniature microscope with excellent mechanical stability, perfect for time-lapse measurements in situ in an incubator or fume hood. The ease of manufacture lends itself to use in containment facilities where disposability is advantageous and to experiments requiring many microscopes in parallel. High performance mechanisms based on printed flexures need not be limited to microscopy, and we anticipate their use in other devices both within the laboratory and beyond.
Highlights
We have overcome many of the limitations of 3D printed mechanisms by exploiting the compliance of the plastic to produce a monolithic 3D printed flexure translation stage, capable of sub-micron-scale motion over a range of 8 × 8 × 4 mm
High performance mechanisms based on printed flexures need not be limited to microscopy, and we anticipate their use in other devices both within the laboratory and beyond
The need to precisely position samples, probes, and other items is a ubiquitous challenge when designing apparatus; good mechanical design is essential for most scientific experiments
Summary
The need to precisely position samples, probes, and other items is a ubiquitous challenge when designing apparatus; good mechanical design is essential for most scientific experiments. Translation stages based on flexures do not have these requirements; their main drawback is that when machined from metal, the range of motion is usually limited by material stiffness. We have implemented a simple optical microscope based around our printed translation stage (Figure 1) to allow us to quantify its mechanical performance in a realistic situation This allows us to measure its stability over a range of time scales and to demonstrate the precision with which it can position a sample relative to the objective lens. Specific points in the structure are deliberately weakened by making them thin, so that the hinge bends reversibly under stress Such mechanisms are typically metal, but the greater compliance of plastic compared to metal allows a longer range of motion in flexure joints and can be an advantage. The parameters l and t can be set in the parametric CAD design for the microscope, simplifying any adjustments needed if it is to be printed in a material requiring different flexure geometry
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