One open syringe extruder, designed to work on any 3D printer, with any syringe, for about $50.
A syringe extruder is the part of a 3D printer that pushes material out of a syringe instead of melting plastic filament. It is how labs print living cells, hydrogels, ceramics, and foods. The Allstruder replaces that part on a printer you already own.
images/allstruder-hero.pngPaper summary
Published in HardwareX, the Allstruder is a modular syringe pump and extruder built to end the fragmentation of DIY bioprinting hardware. Instead of optimizing one corner of the design space, it stays broadly capable across cost, performance, simplicity, versatility, and printability at once.
Every design file, mount, adapter, and slicer profile is openly licensed under CERN OHL v2.
The Allstruder consolidates lessons from Fab@Home, the Replistruder series and Large Volume Extruder from the Feinberg Lab at Carnegie Mellon, the Enderstruder, and the Printess. See the lineage
Open access in HardwareX 28 (2026) e00827 under CC BY 4.0. Read the paper →
Bioengineers and open-hardware developers at Tufts, Pittsburgh, and Southwestern University. See the full team →
Jump to any section, or scroll to read the whole thing.
The gap that dozens of DIY extruders left open.
Four modules: actuator, transmission, motor, syringe.
Three starting points, and how it compares to prior tools.
Parts, printing, assembly, mounting, firmware.
Mechanism rigidity and output quality, tested separately.
Toward a shared open-source ecosystem in biofabrication.
Commercial extrusion systems tend to fall into two camps. Volumetrically accurate syringe pumps respond slowly. Pressure-based extruders build pressure quickly but imprecisely. Both are expensive, hard to customize, and rarely fit the open, modular workflows that research and teaching labs actually run.
The open-source response has been prolific but fragmented. Dozens of capable DIY extruders exist, each tailored to one material, one machine, or one lab, and few travel any further. Labs end up shaping their workflows around whichever extruder they inherited, and a graduate student spends a year rebuilding an actuator that already works somewhere else.
images/extruder-comparison.pngWe scored every prior extruder on affordability, performance, simplicity, versatility, and design for 3D printing. The scores are best read as a map of design trade-offs, not a ranking. Each earlier tool optimized one corner on purpose.
No prior tool occupied the center. Simplicity and versatility were the two axes most often traded away, so those became the Allstruder's targets, while keeping cost near the cheapest designs.
A leadscrew-driven pusher rides a precision linear rail inside a printed frame. A belt couples the motor to the screw. Paired printed adapters hold whichever syringe you need. Four modules, each swappable.
images/allstruder-modules.pngThe pusher is partially disassembled every time you change syringes. A keyed slot on its front face mates with a boss on the back of each adapter, so realignment is correct every time rather than by feel.
Four widely spaced mounting bolts and a low center of mass reduce the moment forces that show up as extruder wobble during fast direction changes.
Leadscrew and linear rail inside a printed frame, ball bearings on both ends of the screw. Available in 66 mm and 116 mm stroke.
A fiber-backed 2GT timing belt couples motor to lead screw. Slotted motor holes make tensioning straightforward and cut backlash.
NEMA 17 or NEMA 14, including the extruder motor already on your printer.
A pusher adapter grips the plunger, a holder adapter grips the barrel. Twelve adapters exist and more are being added.
The platform is modular in the way a LEGO set is. The library currently holds two frames, two motor mounts, two pusher blocks, twelve syringe adapters, a Bowden nozzle adapter, a syringe heater in development, and more than ten printer mounts.
A balanced starting point. Most users change only the syringe and its adapter from here.
| Extruder | Cost | Simplicity | Design for 3DP | Versatility | Performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Replistruder 3 | 30 USD | 1 | 7 | 4 | 3 |
| Replistruder 4 | 150 USD | 5 | 7 | 5 | 7 |
| Replistruder 5 | 250 USD | 7 | 6 | 4 | 10 |
| Enderstruder | 54 USD | 5 | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| Large Volume Extruder | 49 USD | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Allstruder | 51 USD | 10 | 10 | 10 | 8 |
Shaded cells mark syringe sizes the extruder accommodates. Prior designs each cover a band of the range. The Allstruder covers all of it, which is the point of the modular adapter system rather than a claim about performance.
| Extruder | Glass (mL) | Plastic (mL) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | 0.5 | 1 | 2.5 | 5 | 10 | 25 | 3 | 5 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 50 | 60 | 100 | |
| Replistruder 3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – | – | ✓ | ✓ | – | – | – | – | – |
| Replistruder 4 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – | – | ✓ | ✓ | – | – | – | – | – |
| Replistruder 5 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Enderstruder | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | ✓ | – | – | – | – | – |
| LVE | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | ✓ | ✓ | – |
| Allstruder | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
The Allstruder does not out-perform a purpose-built tool inside that tool's own niche. A Replistruder 5 with a glass syringe on a high-quality motion system still wins on raw mechanical performance. The Allstruder trades a little of that for being easier to use and far more broadly compatible.
Assembly needs metric Allen wrenches and bolts, happens mostly in a single plane, and is documented step by step in the paper and in a build video.
Everything is mass-produced and off the shelf: an MGN9C linear rail kit, a Tr8x8 lead screw and nut, two 608 bearings, 2GT pulleys and belt, a NEMA 17 motor, and M3 hardware. The full bill of materials with part numbers is in the paper.
PETG is recommended. PCTG and some photopolymer resins also work. Avoid PLA for long-term use, since it creeps under load. Files ship as STL, 3MF, and STP, pre-oriented for FFF, with a PrusaSlicer project included.
Follow the build video alongside the figures. Everything tightens to finger tightness. When you finish, the lead screw should turn under light finger pressure with no axial play.
Print the mount for your printer or measure the gantry and adapt one. Every mount uses the same 35 × 50 mm four-bolt pattern. Wiring is identical to the original extruder motor.
For a standard Tr8x8 build at 1/16 microstepping, extrusion is 800 steps/mm, or a rotation distance of 4 mm in Klipper. Marlin, RepRapFirmware, and Klipper are all supported. Disable thermoplastic start and end scripts.
CAD, mounts, and slicer profiles on GitHub · Archived design files on Zenodo
The paper characterizes the Allstruder at two separate levels, and the distinction matters when you read the numbers.
images/deflection-test.pngA dial indicator measured pusher deflection with a 5 mL plastic syringe pressurized to 30 PSI above ambient, which exceeds the pressure needed to print most bioinks. Maximum deflection was 20 µm at a calculated 24 N. This property belongs to the extruder itself.
images/resolution-test.pngA resolution test printed in 23 mg/mL type I collagen on a Creality K1 SE with a 1 mL Hamilton glass syringe and a 30 gauge needle. Filament width averaged 141.8 ± 15.61 µm from a 150 µm needle. Center-to-center spacing held under 3% error and filament spacing under 4%.
images/printers-materials.pngMachines from a Creality Ender 3 V2 to a CellInk INKREDIBLE, plus the Printess from the Skylar-Scott lab. Printed objects include soy protein scaffolds, granular hydrogels, collagen microfluidic chips, aerogel precursor disks, a protein iris, and chocolate.
The design and build instructions went out broadly and came back with feedback. That loop is what resolved the adoption-limiting problems, and it is why the component library keeps growing.
The Allstruder exists because other groups published their hardware instead of keeping it. Each of these designs solved something real, and we borrowed from all of them.
Malone and Lipson put direct ink write pathing and extruder retraction within reach of ordinary labs. Rapid Prototyping Journal 2007
Developed in Adam Feinberg's lab at Carnegie Mellon, where several of us trained. FRESH made soft hydrogel printing practical, and the Replistruders became the most widely cited and remixed open syringe extruders in bioprinting. Science Advances 2015 · HardwareX 2021
Pushed printable volumes to 50 mL syringes and opened the door to clays and other bulk pastes. HardwareX 2018
Turned an inexpensive Creality Ender 3 into a capable fluid printer and democratized entry-level bioprinting. HardwareX 2024
A low-cost, highly modular small-format bioprinter from the Skylar-Scott lab, now Allstruder-compatible through a custom mount. Advanced Materials 2025
Our aim is to consolidate those lessons into one platform ready for adoption and extension. One extrusion system that travels across printers, materials, and labs, so method development goes into the new component rather than into re-solving the actuator, and so protocols and results become portable between groups.
The component library grew because users asked for things. If you need a mount for a printer we have not covered, an adapter for an unusual syringe, or an attachment like a heater, chiller, or mixing head, open an issue or send a pull request.
Tufts University
Invented embedded FRESH printing as a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon and spent a decade developing it. Expert in materials science and additive technologies for regenerative medicine.
Tufts University
Biomedical engineer who worked in the Kaplan Lab on bioprinting and implantable biomaterials, and builds educational content in biofabrication.
University of Pittsburgh
Ph.D. student in the Shiwarski Tissue Engineering Lab. Designs open-source hardware and 3D microfluidic models of hemodynamics and clotting factor binding, and leads bioprinting workshops.
Southwestern University
Associate Professor of Engineering. Works with undergraduate researchers on open-source bioprinters and reinforced biomaterial inks.
University of Pittsburgh
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and Medicine, and Principal Investigator in the Vascular Medicine Institute.
Hinton T, Patten R, PereiraTavares AJ, Crosby C, Shiwarski DJ. The Allstruder: an open syringe extruder for every 3D printer. HardwareX. 2026;28:e00827. doi:10.1016/j.ohx.2026.e00827
@article{hinton2026allstruder,
title = {The Allstruder: an open syringe extruder for every 3D printer},
author = {Hinton, Thomas and Patten, Riley and PereiraTavares, Antonio J.
and Crosby, Cody and Shiwarski, Daniel J.},
journal = {HardwareX},
volume = {28},
pages = {e00827},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.1016/j.ohx.2026.e00827}
}