DIY Picospritzer
I was in Tokyo recently and stopped by my friend Taro Ishikawa’s lab (of TaroTools fame). He and Misa are doing very well. They have exciting work underway and are expanding their lab. Taro’s a resourceful, clever guy and while I was there I saw some more of his handiwork. Instead of buying a Picospritzer (which costs $1500-$3000, the NPI PDES system is less expensive, but still in the 4 digits), Taro hooked a regulator (above) directly to an electric valve (below) and called it a day. The valve is actuated by a TTL pulse, and the regulator sets the pressure. Simple, elegant, saves space, and saves money.
[…] cleverness from Taro Ishikawa. Instead of buying a homeothermic heating pad for surgeries (these often cost > $1000), Taro used […]
Thanks for the useful tips. Send Taro my greetings. I keep finding small useful devices in our lab drawers that he’s crafted.
The valve in the photo was a model that was driven by AC power supply. This had a problem that the timing of open/close fluctuated in a range up to 8 ms. Then I changed the valve to FAB31-8-3-12C-3, which is driven by DC24V. Using this, I see no measurable fluctuation of the timing.
[…] There may be other alternative however if this doesn't work, for example a DIY picospritzer (link) and Dr. Gert de Couet used to use the faint pressure from turning a thumbscrew and using a […]
[…] can cost roughly $3000 or in South African terms about R30 000. Inspired by this post describing a custom built Picospritzer on the website Labrigger we built our very own custom made DIY picospritzer for about R4000 […]
Hi Taro,
After seeing your post, we would like to make in our lab a similar system. Could you possible give me your contact, in order to send you some questions if you’re available?
thanks a lot!
Jose
Check out the Puffadder post on Joe Raimondo’s blog – there’s a detailed description – and about time it’s called something different to a picospritzer. Spot on, Joe!
And if you can’t be bothered trying to source parts (some you can only buy in bulk) from different suppliers, you can opt to have the open-source PicoSpritzer alternative built for you: OpenSpritzer https://neurogig.com/openspritzer