Equipment

Not that I can contribute this, but I thought that it would be interesting to see the home/work labs that some of the people here use. It would help to see what other people in your field use and give you and idea of what you could use.

In this forum every piece of apparatus, devices, glassware, etc. can be discussed. Properties of the equipment, ways to make special equipment from standard products, creative use of standard products in a special way, all this kind of things can be discussed here. We do not appreciate threads with pointers to manufacturers of certain equipment, this is not meant to be a forum, filled with advertisements. There is no objection of mentioning a certain company, but it must be in the context of useful information about the device or apparatus being discussed. We would really love to see creative ideas of how the functionality of hard to obtain devices can be mimicked…

Hello people, I would like to create a simple Glovebox She not be super complicated... i just need to replace the air by a "pure air" without any dust.. or maybe you know where i can find one for a cheap price ? Thx to all

I obtained a 3.5 feet long flint glass tube and an erlenmeyer flask to use as a distillation apparatus. The Teflon tape wraps the rubber stopper since that distilling acid's can dissolve the rubber. I used my LPG (Liquid Propane Torch) to bend the flint glass tube while blowing into it sightly to avoid closure of the tube and not too hard as to pop open the tube. I have yet to set up a proper condenser unit on my apparatus but will be working on it soon.

Refluxing is often an important part in Chem, esp some of the organic synths. but the condensers and "Quickfit" apparatus can be quite expensive and you also need constant running water etc... so here is a Very simple and cost effective way to get the same result! this shows what you will need for 2 of them: this is the 500ml version in 2 pictures because it`s quite tall: so as you can see, all you`ll need will be a long necked round bottom flask, a stopper to fit this with a hole drilled through it, and a long glass tube that fits inside this hole. then along the tube I put several small transistor heat sinks on it. I`ve used this apparatus…

here`s a very simple Water electrolysis piece of apparatus I made a few days ago, the design is Very Simple, and the materials are easily obtained from most any glassware supplier. and: I use NaOH soln in it as the electrodes are plain Stainless steel wire, If you can afford Pt electrodes then H2SO4 soln it usually preferred.

Glass stirring rods may not be anywhere near the most expensive equipment the average amateur chemist owns, but they are nonetheless ubiquitous. I also think it's nice to have at least one piece of equipment that you made in some way. Current ebay prices put the typical 6mm wide, 12 inch (305mm) long stirring rod between $0.75 and $1 (USD) each before shipping. Instead of spending my money on a dozen or so stirring rods, I purchased a large quantity of 6mm diameter clear borosilicate rod for glass working. I won 5lbs of rods for only $5 (which comes to 51 pieces that are 24 inches (610mm) long) and picked them up since the seller was fairly local. Stirring rods that I…

I was going to post this a while back but got stuck into some uni work so here it is... I wanted a magnetic stirrer but I didn't want to pay $100+ for one so I decided to make it from what I had in the garage. The idea was to use an old fan, a couple of magnets, a stirrer bar and a power supply. Here's the list of things that I used, remember that you can use a vast range of alternatives depending on what you're going to use the stirrer for (I need(ed) it for a couple of chem experiments): - 12 V (0.15A) fan from an old power supply - 6 x neodymium disk magnets (4 x 5mm) - magnetic stirrer bar (white, coated) - power supply (5-6V) - 5 pieces of wood, 6 na…

Im looking into the uses and need for human skin, could anyone give me there ideas?

Does anyone know if methanol's a suitable cleaning solvent for cleaning lab glassware? Or would I be better off going for something more expensive like propanone or propan-2-ol? I know methanol's more toxic, but that shouldn't be a problem as long as the area's well-ventilated, right?

We recently acquired a used Beckman DU530 spectrophotometer and it did not include an instruction manual. After emailing Beckman we found out that a manual would cost $86. So we are trying to find instructions on how to run the system checks on the machine so it can be re-calibrated. Any help would be appreciated!

What is the equipment in this picture? If we get it right I could win 12 bottles of wine! [ATTACH]1913[/ATTACH] All answer/suggestions welcome - even if wrong - most amusing reply gets a mystry prize.

I had the opportunity to pick up "How to measure anything with electronic instruments" (John A. Keucken) from the local Half Price Books store. The book consists of circuits, schematics, diagrams, and some basic theoretical explanations. All pretty neat. Are there any other resources for making "any" electronic instrument or measuring anything? More recently, my interests have been in figuring out how to do chemical analysis ("do it yourself" chemistry instrumentation), though I would appreciate the help of anybody with some information and links. - Bryan BTW, contents of the Keucken book specifically include: zero current voltage measurement, ammeter, re…

I can't seem to find the right information for a home built double slit experiment (using a laser.) Which, as you've probably guessed, I want to build...on the cheap. So here's a few questions, if anyone can help... What's the most suitable casing, plus material for projecting the light on ? What's the most affordable laser that would suit this experiment ? Where can I get cheap slides and gratings ? I'm pretty sure I saw some on ebay, but I'll have another look. Thanks awfully

Basically, it's a little LED light stuck inside a bead, and the "chain" of necklace is the wire connecting it to a battery in the clasp. http://www.firejewelusa.com/cube.htm What I'm wondering is if anybody here has tried making their own, and where's the best place to buy the parts?

Hi all, I am new here, studing equine motion. I am looking to start using force plates (ground mounted) to asses weight transfer on a horse foot. I am looking for the following information / ideas, Sources and prices of existing systems suitable for my use.. Any information on a diy version? Ideally the working of the system would be pc based. Using the sensors in the force plate as pixels they would show on a computer screen much like a thermal image. Ie, they could all be blue when no load is applied, red at full load and various other changes inbetween. The computer would start to 'record a video' as the first one changed and that could then be repla…

I've been wanting for a while to try out extracting different scents from different plants but I'm lacking one crucial piece of apparatus, namely distillation set (or more precisely, the condenser part). They are available for purchase at very expensive prices so I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to make one that would work for my purpose... Considering other equipment, I have beakers, flasks, round bottom flasks, funnels, tubes, I have water and heat source etc... I was thinking of using polystyrene test tubes and then cutting and melting them such to make something that resembles a condenser, but before I go on with that I just wanted to see if anyone …

Hi everyone, I'm a student lab assistant assisting on an experiment and we're stuck on a particular problem which I thought maybe the collective wisdom of the great people here might be able to solve. We are doing an experiment where we are growing crickets inside a Thermoline Incubator with diurnal lighting. It would be really helpful if we can video record them inside the incubator throughout their life cycle from birth to adulthood. The incubator has a solid door so we can't point a camera into the incubator from the outside and the incubator is set to 32 degrees celsius / 90 degrees fahrenheit on the inside. We're contemplating putting a camera in the …

Does anyone have any information about this old cryostat we found? Our lab does neurological research and is willing to use it if salvageable. Pictures are below. What I have found so far is this ad (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/ac60186a877), so this seems like a rather old piece of equipment. Has blades and all. Looking for an instruction manual really, but can't seem to locate one on the interweb. Any help is much appreciated!

Hey guys, I'm new the forum here. I'm no scientist nor anything close to it, however, I am a big fan... I need your help by telling me what this is called and where I can buy it. Thanks for your input!

someone know where i can find agar to make agar plates to culture bacteria???

Probably not the right forum; perhaps 'experiments' or 'projects' would be better, but.. I'm noodling up a variable-voltage power supply (~0-35VDC), and I'm using a Radio Shack 1mA FSV 15V panel meter to display the output. (15Kohms feed resistor to get the appropriate voltage drop.) Since the voltage range of the supply goes to about double that, I thought I'd put in a switch to make the appropriate changes to the circuit to allow the meter to display 0-30VDC, and add the notations to the meter face. I want to put a shunt across the meter to keep from damaging it in an over-voltage situation, and also give an indication of the fact with an LED. Currently I'm s…

me and a friend are fast, and really competative. are there some tests we can do to see which one of us is faster? gotta be something physical..... no silly clicking flash game tests.....

How do i use agar solution? I need to know basically everything about it! Thanks!

I want to make an Fourier Transform Spectrometer in the visible range. I am having problems with finding a proper linear stage. The wavelength range is 400-1100nm, which makes out the smallest resolution and accuracy should be better than 150nm. The wavelength resolution at 1100nm should be 1nm, which works out the track length to be greather than 2mm. The system f# makes that the mirror should be of 50mm size, which makes its weight to be 50g. I don't want to get into the argument that a dispersive system is better. I know that. Please help me find a component which will help me displace 50g weight at a resolution of <150nm for a total track length of >2mm. …