About

A small business…

3D Inks, LLC is a small business located in Tulsa, OK and owned by Professor Jim Smay.  We produce customized 3D printers for ceramics research labs.  As pictured above, the basic machine consists of a gantry robot (X-Y-Z) and one or more syringe pumps.  The X-Y-Z motors are high-precision servo stages with encoder feedback and brushless motors.  The syringe pumps use inexpensive syringe barrels and standard tips for precision dispensing of the inks in a controlled pattern to build three-dimensional structures.  The syringe actuators are a ballscrew type driven by brushless motors.  On the bottom shelf of the table pictured above is the drive rack that contains the DC power supplies, PWM drives and IO connections.  

Part design is accomplished by RoboCAD software.  One may either draw toolpaths directly or import .stl files for slicing and filling.  Support material calculations are included in RoboCAD and the output is a customized g-code file; ready for execution on the motion controller.

If you would like more information on obtaining a customized 3D printer for your lab, please contact me by filling out the contact form on this page.

Best regards,

Jim Smay