3D printable multicolour molecular models of all canonical amino acids (space-filling; ball-and-stick)

This project includes all files to reproduce space-filling and ball-and-stick models of all canonical (= standard) amino acids at a scale of 100,000,000 : 1. Simply load all .stl files in the respective folder at the same time into PrusaSlicer and select “yes” when asked to consider the files as one object. Then select the correct extruders for the respective atom types. Make sure to consider the following tips:

General tips for slicing/printing:

• When aiming to print the spacefill models without hydrogen atoms, just do not select the file containing the hydrogen atoms when dragging the .stl files into PrusaSlicer
   
• Use the purge to infill setting and consider cutting the molecules in half (and using dowel connectors) when printing space-filling models to avoid waste and save time!
   
• Printing as many models as possible at the same time might reduce waste and save printing time
   
• Especially when printing the ball-and-stick models with hydrogen atoms, the resulting molecules are very delicate; to avoid fragmentation pay attention to:
  • Scaling them up by 50 or even 100% makes them much more rigit!
  • Using the purge to infill setting also for ball-and-stick models helps to stabilize the bond (especially the interface of different colours can be susceptible to breaking)
  • Using soluble supports makes removing the supports easy without breaking

Examples were printed on a MK3S+ w/ MMU3 upgrade.

Advanced

A brief introduction to the used methodology to generate the Stl files for multicolor printing:

Get the scripts from: https://github.com/Frinn00/mercury-scripting

All amino acid molecules were created in Avogadro 1.2 (via Build/Insert/Fragment/amino_acids) and exported as individual .mol2 files. 

When creating .mol2 files this way, note that it is necessary to modify the second line of the .mol2 file (e.g. by opening it in the text editor) to not contain any *-symbols anymore and then save the file (see scheme below). Otherwise, the next step will not work.

Open the file with CCDC Mercury (licence needed for the script to execute) and launch the respective script via the CCDC python API to obtain the desired .stl files. The .stl files will be in the Output folder that has been selected in the scripting settings.

A more detailed manual can be provided upon request!

In case any questions arise, feel free to just contact me :)