[100 micron spheres]

Inkjet and 3d printers (FDM/FFF in this case) are completely different technologies. You're comparing ejecting tiny droplets of water like ink by heating it up so that it "explodes" out of a tiny pre-filled chamber, to pushing out a hot and highly viscous fluid through a nozzle using pressure.

Now, there are 3d printers that use powder and an inkjet like nozzle to spray a binder onto said powder, but then we're talking machines that are orders of magnitude more expensive than an Ultimaker.

 

Thanks. I will see what I can find out about these types of systems,

[100 micron spheres]

Inkjet and 3d printers (FDM/FFF in this case) are completely different technologies. You're comparing ejecting tiny droplets of water like ink by heating it up so that it "explodes" out of a tiny pre-filled chamber, to pushing out a hot and highly viscous fluid through a nozzle using pressure.

Now, there are 3d printers that use powder and an inkjet like nozzle to spray a binder onto said powder, but then we're talking machines that are orders of magnitude more expensive than an Ultimaker.

 

[100 micron spheres]

So, standard inkjects can fire off stacatto droplets because the inks they use are Newtonian?

In current 3D printer nozzles is the output a stream due to the stickiness?

Are there any nozzle configurations that can deliver digital pulses to break a stream into droplets?

Can pressurized air be added to the nozzle input?

Thanks for you patience with what may be dumb questions.

[100 micron spheres]

Thanks.

As a thought experiment -what would happen if the nozzle squirted (sorry about the amateur terminology) pico to nano ml pulses of polymer into a cold liquid - maybe water. What do you think would happen?

[100 micron spheres]

Thanks for your quick reply. Can you explain why not - for someone who has no real understanding of the process?

[100 micron spheres]

I am trying to develop sustained release pharmaceutical formulations (eg injections that would last a month).

If there was a way to print 100 micron spheres of a drug/polymer mixture that would be great - no other good way of getting regular spheres of that diameter with spray drying etc.

I am a complete newbie to 3-D printing but it seems like it could be done. We can produce a 1 mm to 2 mm rope made up of the drug & polymer for the feed.

Does anybody have any experience doing something like this?

Thanks

Tom