For those of you who have access to a machine shop, check out this post from the Djoko Lab with technical drawings on how to machine an inoculating turntable. The parts go for about $20, and the results look solid:
Category: DIY
Getting a Waterjet Cutter for Under 10k
Waterjet cutters are often so expensive and esoteric that I’ve only ever seen one in an actual lab. But in principle they should be a fantastic alternative when CNC mills, laser cutters, knife printers or 3D printers can’t get you where you need to be. As the Applied Science youtube channel shows, with some know […]
A User-Friendly, Low-Cost Turbidostat
For various experimental applications, microbial cultures at defined, constant densities are highly advantageous over simple batch cultures. That’s where a turbidostat comes in, which keeps a culture at a constant turbidity. Here’s a paper by Stefan Hoffmann, Christian Wohltat, Kristian Müller and Katja Arndt where they present a 3D printed small-scale turbidostat for under half a […]
Low Cost Laser Cutters
With up to 4 watts of laser power, the Emblaser is comes as a kit for as low as $650. For five times the cost, and with ten times the power, you can get a “hobby series” laser cutter from Full Spectrum Laser. Of course consider if you really need or want a laser cutter, […]
A Cheap Laser Shutter Using a Hard Drive Disk
An anonymous contributor wrote in about making laser shutters using hard disk drive rotary voice-coil actuators. The contributor’s lab has made a couple of these which are controlled via an Arduino, at a much lower cost than shutters from Thorlabs or similar. Another paper of a similar vein, by W. Bowden, R. Hill, G. Baird, and P. […]