My masters thesis in mechanical engineering was to redesign a microfluidics DNA extractor chip. A system had been previously developed and built with a PDMS chip. The chip was expensive ($40) and time consuming to make (3-4 hours each) , so my job was to design a chip to be used with the same system, but significantly cut costs and manufacturing time.
The original system: cluttered, difficult to use and prone to malfunctions.
After using the previous machine a few times, I decided to redesign and rebuild the machine as well. I used a central manifold to eliminate hundreds of hoses and connectors.
The machine was also designed to be easy to use and fix when necessary.
As part of the chip redesign, I CNC machined a manifold block that simplified the chip by moving some of the features permanently on to the machine.
This is the new machine with the manifold block and an adjustable clamping lid.
The new $.40 chip inside the new machine.
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