[DIYbio] Re: low cost bacterial non-salty electroporator proposal

Several list members are interested in electroporation for a lower price than
currently available new machines.  Anyone else interested in small footprint, reliable,
safe to use electroporation tools please contact me and I'll send you a write up
about how a kit with minor assembly required selling at $125 can be made as
fully open source hardware and improved soon after it is first introduced.

The 0.5 to 1.0 version will have a lab bench footprint smaller than 10cm x 10cm,
use an external  28 Volt DC power adapter, give you a python interactive prompt
for programming it when connected via USB and a terminal emulator program.  A
few simple commands strung together will allow creating a custom voltage vs time profile
for zapping various bugs in various sized electroporation chambers.   The peak Volts
will be 3kV and able to drive a 30kOhm load.

Like a millimeter scale Dr. Frankenstein experimental setup -- but with safety features.

Some salty, (normal saline), preparations of cells from mammals will be too
low resistance to zap very well with this machine.  Bacteria
are easy to prep so the cuvette resistance is above 30kOhms.  Later follow-ons of
this machine might be made to zap larger volumes and lower resistances, but is
there a real need for larger volumes?  This will be a small light machine that
can be mounted on a liquid handler arm for zapping many small samples and accumulating
the results instead of requiring one big zap, (and big, klunky, expensive machine).

John Griessen