Worlds Smallest Tesla Valve? - Shrinky Dink (Shrink Film) Microfluidics

[@Alorand]

"What are you planning to use for your Master's Thesis?" "Shrinky dink"

[@danilov114]

You kinda missed your train there if you do not have some unique take on it...

[@laserflexr6321]

LOL

[@toddwest9115]

"How did you draw up the design?" 1980's Spirograph

[@justingould2020]

"Shrunken Shrinky Dink" is the best description I've ever seen in a scientific paper.

[@vetlerradio]

Hahahahaha, thanks for the laugh Snarky.

[@Soken50]

@@vetlerradio what was so funny about that paper exactly ? Keep in mind I'm not a native english speaker so I very well may have missed it.

[@threeglassjars6051]

I mean, Master Shrinky-Dink is pretty good too

[@threeglassjars6051]

@@Soken50 Shrinky-Dink is not a word you would normally find in a sheet like this, as it kind of feels like starting a scientific paper with "It's Ya Boi"

[@Soken50]

@@threeglassjars6051 wasn't asking you but vetlerradio who apparently laughed to the linked boring paper.

[@Nighthawkinlight]

Pretty cool. Been a while since I played with a shrinky dink, it's surprising how well they keep their proportions.

[@darkracer1252]

that's only due to the stretching method. if they stretched it unevenly then the proportions would go out of the window

[@rillloudmother]

netscape, is that you?

[@stoptrudeau42]

@BLVGaming / Y1000 i thougjt the guy was making a joke lol i guess he was serious

[@Deathbyfartz]

Did you know you can actually do the same with most candy plastic bags, for example the Haribo ones :p

[@dingdingdingdiiiiing]

From your numerous warnings of what not to do, it is evident how many things went wrong as you tried to do this. I absolutely admire your persistence.

[@cameronwebster6866]

If you’re using CNC for this, Harvey Tool’s 0.001” endmill might be a good idea. A vacuum hold down system might be a good idea as well.

[@VEC7ORlt]

Oh boy, you've really opened a big can of worms on this one - this kind of tool requires a lot of other things to be very very right - spindle runout is very serious problem for a 25micron cutter, that and it needs to be turning at 40krpm. Setting up an measuring shit at those dimensions is hell of its own.

[@michaelschalk4718]

Would also need an air spindle to get enough rpm.

[@mytuberforyou]

squeegeeing the film down with water or glycerin might work also in lieu of a vacuum.

[@VEC7ORlt]

@@NoSaysJo Oh really?

[@andrewstambaugh8030]

@@VEC7ORlt For cutting plastic? Hogwash. Yeah, you can raise the bar of entry to something like $30k-40k, or you could use an $800 Chinese router and the finest bit you can and just do it. I've used .001"tip and .005"tip engravers *_ON BRASS_* on my 10 year old $1200 Chinese CNC router. And with that comparatively cheap price of entry, you can easily consider inexpensive upgrades such as changing the axis ratios to eek out a little more precision, and swapping the spindle bearings out for ceramic bearings. For under $1800, you can get 90% of the results of a $30k machine. I am surprised that laser etching wasn't mentioned....

[@schnaps1790]

build a vacuum table for your CNC

[@jakobmayer6798]

Or you just simply go with one of those electrostatic plates that old plotters used to hold down the paper?

[@davidprock904]

How about using two hydrophilic surfaces, that’s if your plastic is hydrophilic, and what you’re laying it on is hydrophilic. Take the tiniest bit of water and put it between them and let the two exclusion zones merge together, read the book called the fourth phase of water.

[@EUPThatsMe]

@@davidprock904 Your comment reminded me of some work my Granddad did in 1975 at Rice University. He was the chief machinists and built various equipment for the researchers. The only paper I can find him referenced in is this: "The influence of pressure on the nuclear relaxation of protons in aqueous solutions and skeletal muscle" scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/15120/7522005.PDF?sequence=1 This paper also references numerous others about the "weird" behavior of water is small spaces. e.g. "A layer of water one micron thick held between glass or mica surfaces will not freeze at a temperature as low as -95C. If the separation of the glass plates is reduced to less than 0.15 microns, the water layer exhibits no measurable vapor pressure and will not evaporate in a vacuum at 300C." Water is such tight spaces also has a different freeze-melt behavior, density, and viscosity much higher than normal. All this matters precisely because water exists between similarly tight spaces inside many biological cells. I think that this "weird" water is at least part of what makes Tardigrades able to survive harsh conditions.

[@parkerbradshaw4122]

Use tape and glue

[@AsbestosMuffins]

@@mshock9637 I've seen a vacuum table work with a mid sized HAAS mill, its not that expensive to get a vacuum pump. Making the bed is the harder part but totally possible

[@zacktoor1591]

Welp... now I'm off to read more about microfluidics. Thanks for pointing me at something I didn't know about :).

[@userou-ig1ze]

same

[@GaminGit]

Same - Now I'm really intrigued about how this could be used for both actuation of micro-hydraulics and logic gates, simultaneously.

[@zacktoor1591]

@@GaminGit As well as simulate human organs with actual living cells. If all three could be done simultaneously, hmmmm... At the least it would open some interesting forms of medical testing.

[@andrewmayer8163]

Same

[@ThinhSamsung-wz8rw]

Same

[@Max_Le_Groom]

That moment when you use better tools (an electric cutter) for your research than scientists (freehand).

[@walkinmn]

Budgets are a b@#$!

[@mrueck834]

It also very well could have just been a paper as a proof-of-concept where it was the perfect amount of effort and time required, as you'd do if you didn't want to get lab time or spend money.

[@walkinmn]

@Noah Hastings Good for me that i want one. But In my experience in universities, is not as easy to buy even a $150 device for your experiment, also profesors will try to save as much as is possible since the budget for all the experiments is limited (plus space, maintenance, etc.)

[@Volvith]

I'm about to commit heresy: Scientists are often just as much of a bumblefuck as your other guy. The only difference is that the average scientist just has a slightly better idea of what exactly is going on.

[@walkinmn]

@@Volvith yup, agreed

[@jakezg3016]

I've seen smaller microfluidics using EDM and really tiny laser systems for suspended particle fluid studies, but only with million dollar equipment, and what you've done is amazing for a hobbyist and super useful, and that really is the smallest tesla valves I've seen (not having seen a whole lot.)

[@Spirit532]

You might want to buy/make an engraving shoe that lets the tool float on a spring, but has a small shoe around it that pushes down on the actual material, ensuring that the bit only cuts several microns off the top. That's how ultra high precision PCB engravers work - they don't even do height calibration, they just use a shoe they pre-adjust.

[@JohnMeacham]

Would that end up making it deeper on each pass? Not that that would be a showstopper. Could be useful.

[@Spirit532]

​@@JohnMeacham Assuming you don't mill away large enough areas to sink the whole shoe in, no. But the whole point of a shoe is to do it in one, controlled, uniform pass.

[@JohnMeacham]

@@Spirit532 ah, I think I understand now, the shoe is small and just around where it is cutting and the tip is calibrated to the shoe rather than the table to spindle? For some reason I was thinking the spring pressure itself determined the depth rather than just providing compliance.

[@JohnMeacham]

@@Spirit532 this is actually really useful to me, I have a spare xy positioning mechanism I was planning on adding an active Z axis too, but this would be far simpler. It just needs to fully lift off rather then have precise z positioning. I was going to use it to cut plastic for microfluidics so has very similar requirements to pcb milling.

[@JCGver]

@@JohnMeacham Should work great, plus material thickness stops being a problem with this set up. Only downside i could imagine is not being able to vary the depth during engraving. Unless you make an active Z axis referenced to the shoe, but then again I don't know if varying the depth of the channel is usefull in microfluidics

[@hooya27]

A thought - consider registration/alignment pin holes for aligning stacking layers. This may help with aligning multi-layer devices.

[@ahaveland]

The tiny Tesla valve (diode) is really cool - you could make an acoustic or ultrasonic heart using them like bridge rectifiers on each side of a membrane bladder.

[@frankzaffuto3670]

"shrinky dinks" and "shmeckles." Guys, is Canada even real?

[@sliedogg]

Or a Rick and Morty fan

[@patjohn775]

Canadian pesos

[@sliedogg]

@Sassy The Sasquatch Type Rick and Morty in search

[@sliedogg]

@Sassy The Sasquatch actually, the story line is all over the place, you should definitely give it a chance😊

[@Iceflkn]

Canada is a myth 😉😜🤣

[@chrisbalfour466]

I wonder if the laser engravers that create 3D images in glass could create 3D microfluidics in glass.

[@Amipotsophspond]

I wonder if you could modify a old blue ray burner. perhaps you could strip the foil off of a CD and replace it with something that can be cut into a channel.

[@astronata2698]

Hi Chris. Search for femtosecond laser micromachining and microfluidics. Basically, the high peak power pulses are absorbed non-linearly by fused silica (other materials are also available) allowing for a very localized modification (on the range of micrometers^3). If you translate the fused silica substrate in relation to the beam focus you modify the glass, creating nanogratings (nanometric structures that are composed by glass and a void) which will enable the anisotropic etch of the glass with hydrofluoric acid. With this you can basically produce three-dimensional microfluidic channels inside fused silica with a very high resolution, with cross-sections of 10 microns being possible. You can also implement optical waveguides (structures that guide light like optical fibers) in the same material with the same technique to produce optofluidic chips that can be used in sensing.

[@chrisbalfour466]

@@astronata2698 Great information. I Googled it and it's far superior to the 3D image engravers I knew about. It's beyond what I was imagining.

[@chrisbalfour466]

@@Amipotsophspond WIthout a data spiral to read while engraving, which functions like an encoder wheel, it would have very low positional accuracy. The old disc labeling tech called Lightscribe is an example of the problem. So, I'm not sure if reverse engineering and hotwiring an optical drive to engrave discs is going to be easy. If it worked though, the microfluidic discs would be made for spinning, possibly to create centrifuges or directional pumps and it'd be cheap. One approach, since DVDs are two polycarbonate discs with a data layer in the middle, it might be possible to aggressively burn/engrave the data layer instead of the polycarbonate. Instead of sealing over an engraved surface, it would already be sealed. It would be necessary to drill, cut or puncture the disc to put fluids inside. Contamination in the fluid channels would be hard to clean out and the data layer might be a metal or dye that corrodes on contact with liquids.

[@addisonwoods9367]

I thought the same thing, but with the shrinkydink application I'd be worried about them shrinking with just the heat of the laser alone

[@Chubbicat]

lucky i was a minecraft redstone engineer when i was young

[@galvanizeddreamer2051]

Unironically, that may actually be valuable here.

[@chrisakaschulbus4903]

@@galvanizeddreamer2051 redstone is just great... the fact that a torch gets turned off when the block it's attached to gets power led to whole calculators, displays and games... even though i don't really see how this could be implemented with those small fluid channels... water pressure could open or close other valves... but how would you do it on this small plastic scale?

[@Timestamp_Guy]

There are router beds that hold down the work piece using vacuum. That would be great for your application, and you could probably build one yourself with pretty common materials.

[@ElizabethGreene]

I was going to say this. :)

[@zeekjones1]

Also a mild glue or double sided tape could hold it flat. Then all that's needed is to peel it away after cutting.

[@area85restorations75]

I am really glad I watched this. This will help me in my design for a full color spectrum 3d printer nozzle.

[@area85restorations75]

@Sad Preston Essentially yes!. However not as small as this is. I plan on attempting to mix standard printer ink with molten clear plastic actively as it is printing.

[@Videoswithsoarin]

some inks change color or burn at the temperature a printer's hot end operates. why not use plastic thats colored like the cyan magenta yello and black ink and combine those. youd have to make sure that the pressure is constant when feeding multiple colored filaments otherwise you will get inconsistent prints.

[@dreggory82]

Why not use colored uv resin printed like an ink jet.

[@absalomdraconis]

@@area85restorations75 : Remember that you can always use the plastic as a mold too. Even if your choice of plastics requires metal parts, this should still be useful.

[@area85restorations75]

@@Videoswithsoarin I plan on using one color filament only and then adding pigments as it prints.

[@Munden]

This is extremely interesting, and I love the low-tech shrinky-dink method.

[@benabusthethird9751]

Yes, please more on this! Extremely interesting and a little mind bending.

[@matiasrinaldi1538]

I have just returned from a microfluidic congress and youtube recommends me this video. Thank you I.A. PDMS is really expensive and difficult to get in a lot of countries, making microfluidic chips with photolithography in a clean room environment also makes you waste a lot of disposables, also it creates a dangerous waste and aren't cheap. You gave me hope again.

[@TheJttv]

Huh I never realized you were supposed to wait for the plastic to flatten. We just always saw that they curled and accepted that.

[@Max_Le_Groom]

Water powered computer logic gates?

[@alperenaydin6139]

I wonder if you could use for deep space crafts as radiation tends to hurt the electronics quiet a bit.

[@rajivnarayan5214]

@@alperenaydin6139 How do you propose that would work? Because using it for basically any logical operation would require a lot of microfluidic cells. And how would you convert the physical actuation to electrical impulses? Besides it probably cheaper to just buy rad hardened components than creating an entire micro chip out of microfluidic cells.

[@alperenaydin6139]

@@rajivnarayan5214 Honestly I started thinking that because the fluids moving through looked like the start up sequence of a starship. So keep that in mind. But a pressure sensor can function as transformer from fluid to electrical.

[@Max_Le_Groom]

Veritasium once made a video about producing electricity just from passing water between coils, I wonder if you could put coils around the microchannels to produce current from this.

[@alperenaydin6139]

@@Max_Le_Groom Veritasium also about compliant mechanisms. Those can be used for certain things.

[@zeekjones1]

Might be able to etch channels either with photo resist, like circuit board printing, or even by laser cutter. If something like this was etched on to a glass sheet, it would be more neutral and able to resist things like solvents and acids better.

[@magey3794]

Thats a great idea. I might actually try this someday

[@nathanmccorkle4278]

another ref for CO2+PDMS diyhpl.us/~nmz787/jmm9_3_037002.pdf (I've personally tried this, and even done metrology with a Veeco white-light interferometer to get a 3D roughness profile)

[@mxcollin95]

Every one of your videos is pure gold man! I really hope you never stop doing KZbin. I’ve learned a ton from your videos and have become really interested in things I never could’ve imagined even existed. Very cool! ✊🤙

[@eugenew2]

About 20 years ago, I worked on projects similar to this to measure motor feedback and tactile feedback pressure sensors as a pump and adjust a continuously variable transmission to reduce under or over driving the motors. I was using hypodermic needle and syringes as my parts to include making highly accurate screw drive pumps. Not with Shrinky Dinks, though. Lol.

[@franglish9265]

Very glad about your work on this, microfluidics will very likely improve cancer detection, and detecting CTCs in patients' bloodstreams.

[@Flamerate1]

Something this video reminded me of: The company "HaptX" has been developing a a system of tactile feedback for virtual reality using microfluidics. This might be something you could be interested in and this video is definitely something they'd be interested in.

[@truestopguardatruestop164]

This is like the 8 video I watch of this channel. This is my dream KZbin Channel! biology and technology really did and not just said by someone that has just read Wikipedia! Thanks a lot man!

[@impulse2]

Firstly, 10 out of 10, video has no intro, such a waste of time these days, no adverts, what a legend, content, and quality of content, excellent.... please take over youtube with your traditional ways!

[@naumen6508]

How is having no advert is a good thing ? People who produce these videos *need* some funds man. It's not like they are trying to milk us, I'd be glad to watch a sponsored bit if that means the guys get the money they deserve for their work.

[@tmac2797]

Man, this has got to be my favorite channel on KZbin.

[@trey1531]

Microfluidics is so interesting! Do more videos on it!

[@SecularMentat]

Love the no-moving parts, tesla valve, microfluidics check valve you've mad here. Very cool.

[@karter61]

Imagine that. On the plus side: On I just made a tool at home to detect cancer. On the down side: I have cancer

[@LarpingGecko3851]

I am constantly amazed by people's ingenuity. It gives some measure of faith in humanity. Wonderful video, sir

[@jimandaubz]

Reply to using tape. You can also use spray adhesive, and you should probably fly cut a sacrifice board taking several passes, that will ensure you get a even Depth Of Cut. I would avoid a vacuum, the pull down points might distort the DOC.

[@Belboz99]

I've done some CNC twill cutting using what's roughly an exacto-blade for the cutting tool. What we used was an adhesive mylar sheet to coat the table surface. This not just keeps the work material flat, it prevents any smaller bits from "popping off" mid-cut and getting caught in the tool. Afterwards we used an exacto knife to pry the cut pieces off the adhesive mylar.

[@EthanFilms]

Ooh Tesla and valve .. my two favorite companies!

[@casperborn8474]

here's a tip for a cnc base, get a reasonably thick metal sheet and drill small holes in it even distances apart (distance may vary depending on your project size) using thinner sheets turn it into a small box that you can attach a decompressor to (do NOT weld, the thermal shock can deform the metal sheet and mess up your projects, this is why we want a thick sheet both so it's harder to deform and so we can drill and tap holes for bolts. bolt the thinner sheets to the thick ones and seal the connections using silicon rubber or leather. now you'll want to apply underpressure to the box, tweak it so that you have gentle suction at all of the holes, make sure the holes are only 3 millimeters or smaller to prevent the suction from deforming the plastic or the plastic being pushed into the holes as the cnc passes over them. your best bet is to use an airpump driven by a BLDC (Brushless DC) motor as this allows for very precise on-the-fly speed control so you can adjust the airflow as needed. As for attaching the two pieced of plastic after shrinking, you can try to "weld" them together using acetone. apply some acetone to the edge of either piece, press them together gently (for instance between two smooth surfaces with some light weights on it) and using a q-tip dipped in acetone rub some more acetone along the seem between the two pieces, this should form a pretty strong bond. Do note I got this idea from welding lego pieces I'm not sure how well it works for flowcells but it's worth a shot

[@klausbrinck2137]

"Shrunken Shrinky Dink" , finally after all, a title of a scientific paper that I can understand!!!

[@Veptis]

Glad to see them in action. They were on Instagram for two weeks. I can finally report that I was productive as well and have developed my dry plates now. Tomorrow I will do the prints

[@FantasKanal]

"Is your PC liquid cooled?" "Nah, its liquid run!" Also cant you build a valve by having a flow of water contract the pipe so far that nothing moves anymore?

[@Dusto9]

How about intertwining a microfluid CPU in a regular CPU for some truly functional liquid cooling? :)

[@albertogregory9678]

yes, shrinky pipe could work, but thats a moving part

[@thomasdarde7476]

I discover this channel one week ago and I am amaze by what you can do

[@parthasarathym1882]

Simulate electronics with it.. It would be awesome to see how electronic components work visually...

[@miron__]

Some guy build simple but very impressive digital circuits with microfluidic membrane valves - shift registers and counters vimeo.com/231916371 He also links his Instructables guide in the description

[@parthasarathym1882]

Hey @@miron__ thanks

[@vladi1475S]

WOW! Knowledge is power! I didn't know the microfluidics can be so versatile for so many application.

[@gamereditor59ner22]

Interesting!! Thanks for the video and keep it up!!!

[@mrGovnoff]

As a CNC-machinist I would reccomend adding a coolant to the treatment area, just pour some water there to get clean cut.

[@MCtomgie]

You should be able to bond PDMS to glass by running both in a oven at 80 C for an hour or two.

[@Volvary]

Would that squish or deform the PDMS in the process? If not, that could be a good rigid medium for single future cells. (Although cutting glass is annoying and that would limit the cells to essentially the type of glass slate he can find.

[@MCtomgie]

@@Volvary If these people use it i'm sure that it works well. www.researchgate.net/post/Is_there_any_other_way_to_stick_PDMS_block_onto_glass_without_using_Plasma_cleaning

[@nathanmccorkle4278]

well he already has a plasma processor, so that would be a lot faster

[@vrajasenan]

@@Volvary Actually PDMS bonded to glass is the most common approach used in microfluidics. It doesnt deform the pdms. While bonding a glass slide to pdms make sure you dont press the pdms or you might end up with the roof of the channel bonded to the slide.

[@AustinSpafford]

What a neat method! For keeping sheets reliably flat in CNC, "vinyl cutter carrier sheets" come to mind, which are moderately stiff sheets of plastic with varying adhesive strengths for mounting paper and other non-backed materials. Some of those already available carrier sheets might work out, but if not, maybe a hard sheet sprayed with a "repositionable adhesive" could create a rigid variant of a carrier sheet. Also for the premade carrier sheets (and maybe spray-adhesives?), they're quite reusable, since you can just hand wash it with a bit of soap to restore the adhesive.

[@patrickfle9172]

Do you think you can make tiny alcohol thermometers for displaying local temperatures?

[@kjamison5951]

Patrick Flé: “… tiny alcohol thermometers…?” Thought Emporium: “Hold my beer.”

[@mattmartineau6018]

@@kjamison5951 I see what you did there....

[@chrisakaschulbus4903]

@@mattmartineau6018 and i smelled what you did there ;) it's our little secret, i won't tell anyone

[@jakobmayer6798]

Couldn't you use one of those old school plotter plates that charge up and make the paper to plot stick to the surface due to electrostatics to also hold down your plastic sheets without the need of taping them down every time? :p

[@Volvary]

You would need to be extremely gentle with your passes or the torque of the bit would easily overpower electrostatics. Also, any catching and it's gone.

[@jozefvindis4926]

I see people already suggested vacuum table, i would only add that MDF is suprisingly permiable and can be used as bed for vacuum table instead of lots of small holes .. good for thin flexible stock as paper or in this case thin plastic ... just seal edges with acrylic paint. Also a have seen some successfull attempts at CNC-ing flexible rubber by freezing it and making it hard for better finish with no special cutters. Maybe this could be aplicable also here. Freezing the plastic i mean, for better surface finish by putting it under dry ice for a while and maybe put some pieces with it on the cnc table to keep it cool. Just some of my ideas. Must say ... great work and good luck with it.

[@bjarnes.4423]

8 did quite a bit of reading in the last few days, and this field is just amazing! I'd love it, if you get back to this project. Especially as I was rather unsatisfied with your more recent projects (except for the meat berries, that was cool)

[@PravoslavacZauvek]

Man! Micro fluid, liquid rocket engine! Ohh and boi!

[@thejoojoo9999]

Wow incredible video ! I am always amazed by the clever ways people find to do seemingly high tech science in their garage.

[@davidprock904]

Make a Calculator... and then things will change very quickly

[@nobledude96]

so that its powered by the pressing of buttons cool !!!

[@willmcconnell6008]

Great source (credited) for my Biotechnology class presentation over research

[@JohnLoganMcKee03]

Has a Tesla valve ever been tried as a heart valve replacement?

[@consciousenergies]

Thank you for linking the research and recreating it. The Vulvular valve = Epic!

[@dave2.077]

so you are telling me we can isolate cancer cells with just a piece of plastic that is about as pricey as chewing your fingernails

[@MsHumanOfTheDecade]

Amazing! All the advantages of small(ish)-scale computing with relative ease and the ability to operate them with only fluids and pressure. This may be the thing I've been looking for!

[@Boomproof]

You truly are awesome: I've started admiring you, and I'm sure it's not a good thing! Damn you! :D But in all seriousness, this must be the one of the most creative and educating channels there were and are. Props! PS: Do you mind if people save your content offline? I stopped trusting the KZbins and Googles, turning back towards storing stuff myself. I'm currently building a set of data-Arduinos that I plan using on the new IPFS crypto-Network, and your work is highly valuable due to your hands-on approach. Who knows, maybe one of these days Alphabet just decides to delete itself!

[@raverkidloki]

The way they diagnose cancerous cells was super fucking interesting. I would live to hear more on these things and see you make more

[@francestorreysirdevan4774]

You are such an impressive genius my friend. Thank you for this!!

[@alexlimtiaco1197]

one trick to engraving is to use a ball endmill instead of the engraving tool, because of the engagement angle of a 3+ flute endmill; it's more stable when cutting aka better, smoother finish. I just found your channel and it's amazing! exactly what I needed

[@jrd8174]

When I was doing microfluidics in a university lab, we used silica wafers with photoresist deposition and etching to form positive molds, cast these in PDMS, then used electrostatics to adhere them to a glass slide. Because of this, we were able to have extremely high resolution microchannnels. Now that you have your plasma desposition rigged up, that could be something interesting to explore for your next video.

[@shingshongshamalama]

Can I just acknowledge how impeccable your comic timing is.

[@bevkcan]

You could try to use pva stick glue to flatten it to the milling plane and use less tape around the perimeter. Should be easy to peel off.

[@liveuk]

I've seen Tesla's valve many times in weather systems and always when smoke is blowing into a Chimney stack or any high cylinders like telegraph posts the trail on the down wind side makes that now iconic Tesla valve pattern.

[@sheepknightgaming]

Yet another video that made me go "Wow", great work !

[@klave8511]

You’ve made the diode, now a transistor. One channel controls the flow through a third (larger) channel. This would be a first step to making a control system where one channel governs the activity in another. Potential uses are chemical control system like an insulin pump regulator. Nice video and well done!

[@argenteus8314]

Seems like this is a field that 3D printers could really do well in once they get a bit more precise. Even now you might be able to get them reasonably compact (though nowhere near as small as is possible with standard techniques) with a good 3D printer, a tiny nozzle and finely tuned settings. Plus, a lot more amateurs have access to a 3D printer than a CNC mill.

[@matta8508]

I know the academia has been working on it, IIRC the process some colleagues of mine were trying to use consisted of first 3d printing and then using the print as a mold for casting the actual PDMS microfluidic device.

[@Andreas-gh6is]

I often struggle to understand what microfluidics is actually good for. I get that very complicated things can be shrunk and maybe you can save reagents/manual labor, but it's hard for me to see applications of diy microfluidics for diy-minded people without a big budget. Your cell-sorter actually makes sense!

[@poppy3879]

Next year I will be working in the bio lab at European XFEL for one year. Your videos have inspired me as I wasn’t very interested in biophysics before.

[@RamHomier]

The shrinking shrinky dinks are oddly satisfying to watch.

[@humbleservantandmessengerChris]

It was cool! Your delivery was attention-grabbing got my interest job well done.

[@deeznetz]

I can't help but think this is the groundwork for how the human circulatory system functions. All of these principles and more we haven't seen yet. Amazing. And here I was thinking I'd run out of interests. Thanks mate.

[@Bob-jn8gt]

I am obsessed with this channel. So cool.

[@soburnedout]

Extremely cool and always awesome vids! You’ve certainly committed yourself to a Lengthy KZbin career - for every one video, you propose anywhere from 1 to n, future vids/experiments. So a huge Thank You in advance!! We’ll be seein’ ya!! 😉

[@darrenparis8314]

If you do the fluid mixing, and then have a sensor for each of the fluid types, you can create a gradient of unique values for the ratiotic combinations of the fluids. With 3+ fluid types, the number and types of gradient combinations continues to increase. This type of computation would be well suited to this application.

[@alexandrepohlmann7490]

You should try it with a resin 3D printer like the SparkMakerFHD that can print so fine and accuracy that your mind will be blown on the first run.

[@patrickfle9172]

AFAIK they had hydraulic PID control for submarine steering in WW2, so there's a lot of things you can 'calculate' using hydraulic flow.

[@howardkurtus7069]

i remember exploring fluid computing a while ago its nice to have some one explain more about it

[@user-be4yc2vr5c]

God this is deff one of my top fav channels. lol. Great stuff

[@DirtyRobot]

Damn great job on using a "joke" material in a way it was never intended to be used. That was some serious out of the box thinking.

[@saccaed]

That's neat stuff. I wonder if a laser CNC could be used instead. I'm thinking a laser would eliminate the burrs that are made with a mill. Maybe a laser would allow for finer designs. Could also include a pattern for the top plates in the gcode.

[@eugenes9751]

Use spray adhesive on the bottom of the plastic. 3 77 works great. Otherwise, you could make a simple vacuum hold surface, MDF is air permeable. Just make an acrylic box under a sheet of MDF, and attach a vacuum. Tape off any sections that you don't want air to go through with foil tape in order to maintain good suction.

[@HarryLewington]

this is fascinating i hope you do more on this

[@MarinusMakesStuff]

Ha, I honestly don't think that *most people* know what transistors are. It's the problem with knowing a lot, we forget a lot of people around us don't know a lot or simply aren't interested in a lot because they haven't had inspiring education (and not because they are stupid or lazy). Anyway, it is our task to be inspiring, and you're doing a good job! :)

[@marylebone9357]

I've read a paper on a microfluidic full adder circuit and would love to see it actually made outside of simulations. If you make another video on microfluidics this would be a really cool thing to see.

[@psiga]

Brilliant stuff, smoothly presented. New subscriber for sure! A big thank you to everyone involved!

[@Anthro006]

Fantastic overview! Thanks for sharing!

[@forrestberg591]

Amazing video! Had never thought about a lot of this, used to use shrinks dink’s when I was a kid

[@Sazoji]

I might try this out with a hobby paper cutter (cricut), a low-pressure cut could make thinner lines than a cnc and it's already in my house

[@Me63422]

You are starting to become my favourite Channel on youtube

[@almosthuman4457]

Mitee Bite has some low temperature wax based thermal adhesives for low force milling operations. It may be a fixture solution for you (cheaper than a vacuum fixture and won't cause valleys from deflection over vacuum channels) a layer of double sided masking tape works well too.

[@Pleasestopthat]

A vacuume fixture with leveling screws to align it with the axes of the router would be a much easier and more effective way to get consistent designs. Also, using a .005” ball end mill from Harvey tool designed to cut plastic will result in fewer burrs around the channels. Very cool video. I work for a company that makes plastic injection molded microfluidic chips for the dna sequencing industry. If you have any other questions send me a message.

[@ANTALIFE]

Smart way of making the channels, when I was at uni I remember using electron beam lithography and PDMS as the actual substrate

[@felixar90]

A vaccum table would be nice, but have you thought about using the surface tension of a small amount of mineral oil or water under the sheet?

[@watermelonexploders]

Could you use micro fluidics all over a heat sync to keep it cool? Having metal channels of fluid over/in the surface dispersing the heat through the fluid? If so that would be a neat way to cool something. But on a way smaller scale having thousands of channels cooling an en entire system.

[@Pyrolysis2142]

Cool video, I never realized that microfluidics had such usefulness. You just earned a sub from a fellow canadian schmeckle spender.