Contribute a Design

Designs people contribute will be shared under the MIT licence, like the rest of the library.

Send your design by email. See the licence below.

chips modules components

If you have printed something and it worked, we would like it in the library. Email is the way to send it, and it needs only three things: the design file, a sentence on what it is, and its category.

What we accept

Three kinds of thing.

Chips: A complete device — inlets, outlets, and a routed layout tying the parts together.
Modules: A handful of components that do one job together, short of being a whole device.
Components: A single cell — a valve, a mixing chamber, an inlet block, a length of channel.

A submission does not have to be perfect and it does not have to be published. It does not need a paper behind it, a tidy parameter sweep, or a characterisation curve. A design somebody has actually printed and used is enough. If it has a quirk — it needs a slow first fill, it only clears at one orientation, the tolerance is tighter than you would like — tell us in a sentence and we will put that on the page. Known quirks are more useful to the next person than a clean-looking page.

What a submission needs

Three things, and one line saying you may share it. Everything else is optional.

The design file — .stl or .scad At least one. Send both if you have them: the .stl is what someone prints, and the .scad is what lets them change the channel width and print a different size instead of reprinting yours.
What it is, in a sentence or two Enough that somebody scanning the library can tell whether it is the part they need.
Its category One of those listed below: for a component, one of the library’s own component categories; for a whole chip, of any kind, “A whole chip”. If none fits, or you are not sure, say “Not sure” and we will file it.
That you have the right to share it One line in the email. It is permission, not information: without it we cannot publish anything you send.

The categories

For a component, the categories the library files its components under, so they change when the library does. For a whole chip, of any kind, one choice: we file it.

If none fits

Not sure

Component categories

Mixers
Mixing chambers filed under Mixers
Multi-inlet blocks
Pumps
Reservoirs
Serpentine channels
Valves
Y-junctions

Chips

A whole chip

More detail (optional, but it helps)

None of this is required. Each item makes the entry more useful to the next person, and saves us writing back to ask.

Printer — make and model. The same file at the same settings does not give the same channel on a different machine.
Resin — by name, and the manufacturer if the name alone is ambiguous.
Settings — layer height, exposure, print orientation, wash and cure; channel dimensions and the outside size of the part, with units, and whether each is as designed or measured off the print.
Photos of the printed part. A phone picture on the bench is fine.
Test results — anything you measured or ran through it, and what happened, including what did not work.
How you would like to be credited — a name and affiliation, a lab or group, or nothing at all.

Why a photo helps: it separates a design somebody has actually made from one that has only ever been rendered. A render proves the geometry compiles. A photograph proves it came off a printer. The library lists an entry as printed only when a photo, a data file or a paper shows it; without one, a design is listed as a design for its printer.

How to send it

By email: every message is read.

Email

No account needed

Send the same three things to openmfda.foundry@gmail.com.

Nothing to sign up for. Copy the block below into the message and fill it in — the top half is required, the bottom half is optional.

Paste this into the email

To:       openmfda.foundry@gmail.com
Subject:  Design submission — <what it is>

What it is:      a sentence or two
Category:        from the list above, or "Not sure"
Attached:        the design file (.stl or .scad, at least one)
I have the right to share this design.

More detail (optional, but it helps)
Name:
Printer:         make and model
Resin:           by name
Settings:        layer height, exposure, orientation, dimensions
Photos:          of the printed part
Test results:
Credit as:       name, affiliation, a lab, or nothing

Attach the files directly — no need to zip them for email, though a zip is fine too.

Size limit: most mail servers reject messages over about 25 MB. If the files come to more than that, send a download link instead of the attachments and we will pull them down.

Start the email →

What happens next

We read every submission Every one, by a person. Usually within a couple of weeks — this is a small team and a queue somebody works through, not an automated intake, so treat that as the honest average rather than a commitment. If a fortnight goes by with nothing from us, a nudge is welcome and not a bother.
We may come back with questions Most often about dimensions or print settings: which dimension is the as-designed one and which came off the measured part, what exposure and layer height produced it, whether the channel cleared on the first attempt. Not an objection — it is what makes the entry usable by somebody with a different printer.
If it goes in, you are credited on the page As you asked to be credited, on the component page itself — the same provenance line every existing entry carries. If you did not say, we will ask before the page goes up.

How the credit renders

Your Name / Your Lab, Your Institution

Same line, same position as on the entries already in the library — for instance Utah-MFDA / Nordin Group, BYU on the serpentine cells.

Licence — MIT

Contributed designs are shared under the MIT licence

Designs people contribute will be shared under the MIT licence, like the rest of the library. To ask about it, write to openmfda.foundry@gmail.com.

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