Hacking 3D printers as laboratory robots

Abstract

The emergence of affordable and reliable 3D printers has enabled laboratories to optimize setups, print custom parts, accelerate research, and rapidly prototype. A new movement has emerged in the past decade, where 3D printers are repurposed as laboratory-specific robots. There are three distinct approaches in the 3D-printer-as-lab-robot approach: modifying the extruder for non-standard material printing, replacing the extruder with a third-party implement, such as a pipette, microscope, or slide holder, or deconstructing the printer completely and using it as a cheap and widely available parts kit for lab-built robots such as syringe pumps. New developments in printer hardware and software control, which enable the use of printers as laboratory robots, are also discussed.