Light-shielded incubation box, suitable for 96-well to 6-well cell culture plates/immunofluorescence plates/confocal culture plates

Maintaining optimal light protection is crucial for successful immunofluorescence staining using microplates, confocal imaging, or high-throughput immunoassays with flow cytometers capable of 96-well plate processing. Previously, laboratories would purchase large rolls of aluminum foil, tearing off appropriately sized pieces to wrap the plates.

However, using aluminum foil presents several significant drawbacks. Firstly, foil is easily damaged and difficult to maintain its shape; repeated opening and closing during staining/washing often results in crumpled foil, necessitating replacement. Secondly, foil-wrapped plates are challenging to centrifuge due to balancing difficulties. Thirdly, foil-wrapped plates are difficult to stack neatly for refrigerator storage. Fourthly, washing is problematic as residual liquid locations are obscured; however, complete unwrapping exposes the plates to light. While black, light-impermeable plates mitigate these issues, they are often prohibitively expensive.

Therefore, I designed this microplate incubation box, inspired by black, light-impermeable plates, suitable for various 6/12/24/96 well plates (the pictured prototype lacked side openings, a design flaw corrected in the second version). Its advantages are twofold:

1. The perforated base ensures light impermeability when resting on a surface, yet allows for viewing of residual cells and liquid levels through the openings, facilitating supernatant aspiration without cell damage.
2. Designed using OpenSCAD, allowing customization based on specific plate dimensions, ensuring compatibility with 6/12/24/96 well plates, encompassing standard cell culture plate sizes.
3. The box sides and lid feature arcuate openings for convenient plate access.

The provided 3mf model is based on a Corning 3799 96-well U-bottom cell culture plate; dimensions are sourced from the Corning website. If you utilize similar U-bottom plates for flow cytometry staining, the model is directly printable as most U-bottom plates share similar dimensions.

=============================Model Customization Instructions=======================

1. The source file incorporates Corning 3513/3516/3524/3599/3799 plate specifications. For Corning plates or those with similar dimensions, simply modify the well plate specification; the default is 96, but inputting 6/12/24 generates the corresponding box.
    

   

2. The lid height, clearance, and chamfer dimensions generally require no modification. Within lid height and clearance, length_clearance represents the unilateral distance between the inner lid wall and outer box wall when closed (default 1mm); lid_height_reduction represents the remaining space between the closed lid and the box bottom.
3. The handle dimensions refer to the chord length and height of the four arcuate openings on the side (default chord length 30mm, height 10mm); those with _96 suffix are specifically for 96-well plate openings (units: mm).
4. The custom height defines the box's internal space; the default is approximately 1mm less than Corning dimensions (enter 0 for default). If your plate height deviates significantly from Corning (6/12/24 well: 20.27mm, 96 well: 14.22mm), input the actual dimension.

5. Box dimensions, shown below, are the adapted microplate length and width, base thickness and wall thickness, and pre-set plate heights (96-well and other specifications), all based on Corning data and generally require no modification; the pre-set dimensions are 1-1.6 mm larger than Corning's official dimensions for easier handling.