Caleb James DeLisle on Nostr: This is a really interesting idea: I wouldn't do exactly what they're doing, but I'd ...

This is a really interesting idea: https://studylib.net/doc/18477369/journal-of-microelectromechanical-systems--vol.-10

I wouldn't do exactly what they're doing, but I'd do something close: Namely you take a thin sheet of steel, and you coat it with photoresist, then shoot it with a low resolution (simple, cheap, home made) photolithography device.

Then you wash off the photoresist to get your pattern, then you put it in an electroplating bath and start adding metal. Metal can only be added to metal, it can't be added where the metal is covered by photoresist.

Moreover, once the height of the plating is higher than the photoresist, it will start to close over the top and bridge. So if you make your channels very narrow, you might close over in less than 1mm of material added.

Electroplating is not that slow, you can probably add 1mm in 24 hours.

Once the process is over, you probably use heat to melt the photoresist and then pressure to drive it out of the channels. Then you can wash the channels with solvent to get whatever photoresist may remain.

Good way to make micro-channel heat exchangers, or anything else that requires liquids to flow through lots of very small pathways.