If you are only a HS student, you may want to consider buying a used
PCR machine off of ebay for around 70-200 bucks. You still run into
the issue of it being functional or not but it may be worth
considering. I got a PCR machine for 150 bucks off of eBay and it
works great.
On Dec 29, 9:06 am, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I use an OpenPCR in my lab, and I'm very satisfied with my purchase. The
> first time I used my OpenPCR was the *first* time a PCR has worked for
> me without troubleshooting.
>
> I've used many machines, and the OpenPCR is the best. The others offered
> nothing over the OpenPCR's abilities, and if they broke they were
> designed to be impossible to easily repair or maintain. They were also
> hard to program and offered no logging functions to speak of.
>
> With the OpenPCR, you get the same fundamental machine in a prettier and
> more portable package, but it's far more easily maintained and debugged,
> cheaper to repair or replace, and it can be polled by the controlling PC
> easily to log temperature curves.
>
> In short, I highly recommend one.
>
> Do bear in mind that if money is a constraint, you can hack together a
> PCR machine out of lightbulbs and PC case fans, if you have a
> microcontroller handy to control them (i.e. Arduino). I've never
> performed a test reaction on my own one, but the temperature curve data
> looked really attactive during testing: I was using a heat gun and a
> cooling fan in a coffee can, with an LM35 temperature sensor. All
> arduino controlled via solid state AC relays.
>
> On 29/12/11 03:30, Jacob wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Hello everyone,
>
> > I am a biotechnology hobbiest located in Oregon, and I have always
> > loved biology and genetics. I was granted the amazing opportunity two
> > years ago to go to the medical school OHSU in Portland, Oregon, to
> > sequence a section of my own DNA. It was there that I learned to run a
> > thermocycler, do PCR, and load a gel tray. Ever since then, I have
> > been wishing I could get more into the field, but alas, I am still
> > just a lowly high school junior, so it may be a while. Or so I
> > thought.
> > I found out about OpenPCR a month ago, and I have been frantically
> > gathering funds since then to purchase one of their thermocyclers,
> > which is the first ever that is in my price range. I was very excited
> > to buy one, and surprisingly even more excited to trudge through their
> > 60-some page instruction book to figure out how to put the damn thing
> > together, until a friend brought up a point I shrugged off at first,
> > but now it really concerns me. "What if it doesn't actually work?"
> > Seeing as I am sinking over $600 into this machine along, not to
> > mention all the other costs associated such as reagents and pipettes,
> > I would like to know if any of you here have had experiences wit the
> > device, and how it worked for you. From what I can tell, and the
> > videos that show the device, it seems like it's a very robust and well-
> > made device. But even so, I'd like to how well it is working for any
> > of you who may have one. Is it reliable? Are the parts robust? Is the
> > cycling precise? Any kinks, flaws, or extra hacks I should know
> > about?
>
> > Thank you!
> > --Jacob
>
> --www.indiebiotech.com
> twitter.com/onetruecathal
> joindiaspora.com/u/cathalgarvey
> PGP Public Key:http://bit.ly/CathalGKey
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