Research And Life Sciences Additive Manufacturing
Build The Apparatus. Control The Experiment.
Advance The Work.
Purpose-built additive solutions for laboratories, researchers, and equipment developers.
Laboratory Equipment
Experimental Apparatus
Specialized Components
Research often depends on hardware you can’t find in any catalog. A new experiment might need a custom fixture, a compact fluid path, a specialized sample holder, or an instrument interface built around your protocol. Additive makes one-of-a-kind and low-volume hardware practical, without holding up the science.
We work with researchers, lab-equipment developers, engineering teams, and scientific manufacturers on fluidics, experimental apparatus, custom fixtures, housings, interfaces, and specialized components. And as a Labconco company, we’ve grown up around labs. We know lab hardware has to work for the people using it, fit the workflow, stand up to cleaning, and support the documentation that reliable research depends on.
A Practical Partner For Scientific Hardware
From Experimental Need to Controlled Solution
Scientific teams often need hardware before the design is ready for conventional tooling. Bring us a sketch, protocol, CAD model, instrument, or sample-handling challenge, and we’ll help you turn it into working parts you can install, evaluate, refine, and document.
We run selective laser sintering and polymer powder bed fusion (SLS/PBF), vat photopolymerization (SLA/VPP), and material extrusion (MEX), so we can match the process and material to your part’s geometry, load, temperature, fluid or chemical exposure, optical needs, cleanliness, accuracy, lead time, and expected quantity, instead of forcing every project onto one technology.
Where We Can Help
Laboratory equipment
Instrument housings, ducts, brackets, guards, trays, access panels, ergonomic interfaces, prototype assemblies, and specialized equipment components.
Fluidics and flow development
Manifolds, channels, nozzles, mixing features, reservoirs, transparent flow models, tubing interfaces, and test components.
Custom fixtures
Sample holders, tube racks, positioning nests, alignment tools, calibration aids, inspection fixtures, and repeatable experimental setups.
Experimental apparatus
Benchtop rigs, sensor mounts, optical supports, environmental-test hardware, research platforms, adapters, and one-off mechanisms.
Sample and instrument interfaces
Carriers, holders, covers, protective features, alignment components, instrument adapters, and workflow-specific accessories.
Specialized and legacy components
Low-volume parts, replacement covers, obsolete components, custom interfaces, bridge hardware, and digitally stored spares.
The Right Process For The Application
Multiple Polymer Technologies
Not sure which process fits? That’s our job.
SLS/PBF
makes tough engineering-polymer parts and complex shapes without support structures, a strong fit for lab fixtures, housings, equipment components, and repeat production.
SLA/VPP
is great for fine features, smooth surfaces, transparent flow models, flexible materials, molds, and highly detailed fluidic or instrument parts.
MEX
is quick to iterate, offers reinforced and high-temperature materials, handles large parts, and keeps experimental hardware affordable.
We’ll weigh loads, heat, chemicals, fluids, cleaning, optical needs, wear, accuracy, geometry, quantity, and service expectations, then walk you through the tradeoffs.
Increase Capability Without Unnecessary Weight
Design for Additive Manufacturing
With additive, you can design hardware around your specimen, instrument, operator, and protocol. Features for locating, clamping, routing, labeling, shielding, viewing, and handling can all go into one coordinated part, instead of a setup cobbled together from improvised lab hardware.
Researchers use this approach for transparent flow visualizations, compact manifolds with internal passages, sample holders that control position and orientation, fixtures that standardize measurement, adapters that connect otherwise incompatible instruments, and apparatus that evolves right along with the experimental method.
Research Hardware Opportunities
- Repeatable sample positioning, alignment, and orientation.
- Integrated channels, ports, tubing routes, and sensor locations.
- Transparent models for observing fluid movement and internal behavior.
- Modular apparatus that can be reconfigured as the study evolves.
- Purpose-built interfaces between instruments, samples, and laboratory workflows.
Accelerate Development And Testing
Move from CAD to Hardware Faster
Research moves forward one observation at a time. Bring us a sketch, CAD file, existing apparatus, failed part, or physical sample, and we’ll turn it into working hardware fast, so you can check fit, flow, alignment, access, cleaning, handling, and repeatability early.
You can try multiple concepts without committing to hard tooling. Compare channel layouts, fixture geometries, instrument positions, sample interfaces, and assembly strategies right in your lab. When a design works, it can move into repeat production from the same digital file.
Support Specialized And Low-Volume Needs
Make the Hardware the Work Requires
Scientific hardware is usually one of a kind by nature. Additive can handle a one-off apparatus, a small set of matched fixtures, instrument-specific adapters, and specialized parts without a mold or a big minimum order.
That’s especially valuable for pilot studies, method development, research equipment, clinical-lab workflow evaluation, university labs, technology transfer, and legacy equipment. Approved designs can live as digital inventory, ready to reproduce or revise as your program evolves.
Engineering And Manufacturing Support
More Than a Print Service
Good scientific hardware takes more than picking a material and hitting print. We look at the whole application: loads, pressure, temperature, fluids, chemicals, cleaning and disinfection, optical needs, permeability, dimensions and tolerances, wear, how it interacts with your instruments, inspection, quantity, and expected service conditions.
Application and manufacturability reviews
Design for additive manufacturing
Process and material selection
Prototype production, inspection, testing, and repeat manufacturing
Quality Matched To Your Application
Quality and Qualification
A visualization model, a research fixture, an instrument component, and hardware used in a regulated workflow all come with very different requirements. We’ll work with you to sort out the documentation, material control, traceability, inspection, testing, cleanliness, and qualification your part actually needs.
Material data alone does not qualify a finished component for every life-science application. Final validation should consider foreseeable loading, pressure, temperature, fluid and chemical compatibility, permeability, extractables or leachables when relevant, cleaning, sterilization or disinfection, biocompatibility where applicable, contamination control, instrument performance, regulatory requirements, and the consequences of failure.
Critical applications require customer approval and an application-specific validation plan.