Maintain Temperature With A DIY Laboratory Dry Bath

August 5, 2017 by John Baichtal 2 Comments

[abizar] lucked into some aluminum blocks, one of which had test-tube-sized holes in it–just the thing to turn into a dry bath for his biology projects.

He stuck a 100W positive temperature coefficient heater into the bottom of the block using silicone glue, and the heater heated the block up in around half an hour. He connected a temperature controller to maintain the temperature at an ambient 95C, with a controller monitoring a thermistor to keep the block within the pre-determined range. The heater has an auto shutoff if it got too hot, so [abizar] felt safe keeping the dry bath on, unmonitored.

The aluminum block sits in a plywood box lined with rubber from an inner tube, with the heater underneath the block and the temperature controller underneath that, separated by more plywood from the heat. The result? A dry, temperature regulated bath for 20 1.5ml test tubes.

Looking to tool up? Check out the plethora of biohacking tools on Hackaday, including a DIY CO2 incubator, a basic biohacker’s toolkit, and a cheap electrophoresis rig.

University Peristaltic Pump Has Hacker Heritage

July 29, 2015 by Nava Whiteford 27 Comments

A team at [Vanderbilt University] have been hacking together their own peristaltic pumps. Peristaltic pumps are used to deliver precise volumes of fluid for research, medical and industrial applications. They’re even occasionally used to dose fish tanks.

They work by squeezing the fluid in a flexible tube with a series of rollers (check out the awesome gif from Wikipedia to the right). We’ve seen 3D printed peristaltic pumps before, and cheap pumps have been appearing on eBay. But this build is designed to be lab grade, and while the cheap eBay devices can deliver ~20ml/min this one can deliver flow rates in the microliter/min range. It also has a significant cost advantage over commercial research grade pumps which typically cost thousands of dollars, each of these pumps costs only fifty bucks.

The pump has a clear hacker heritage, using an Arduino Uno, Adafruit Motor shield, and 3D printed mechanical parts. So it’s particularly awesome that they’ve also made their design files and Arduino code freely available!

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Get Biohacking With A DIY CO2 Incubator

July 25, 2015 by Nava Whiteford 6 Comments

The [Pelling Lab] have been iterating over their DIY CO2 incubator for a while now, and it looks like there’s a new version in the works.

We’ve covered open source Biolab equipment before including incubators but not a CO2 incubator. Incubators allow you to control the temperature and atmosphere in a chamber. The incubator built by the [Pelling Lab] regulates the chambers temperature and CO2 levels allowing them to culture cells under optimal conditions.

While commercial incubators can cost thousands of dollars the [Pelling Lab] used a Styrofoam box, space blanket, and SodaStream tank among other low cost parts. The most expensive component was a CO2 sensor which cost $230. The rig uses an Arduino for feedback and control. With a total BOM cost of $350 their solution is cost effective, and provides an open platform for further development.

The original write up is full of useful information, but recent tweets suggest a new and improved version is on the way and we look forward to hearing more about this exciting DIYBio project!