Re: [DIYbio] DIY liquid handling robot?

Tons of hardware seems "really simple" when you get down to it.  An incubator is a box that stays at a constant temperature, yet a lab incubator costs thousands of dollars new.  I've also seen 50 posts on DIY Incubators, all of them semi-crude mash together-ed monstrosities.  I've even made one myself, but it's ugly, and it sucks. Why doesn't someone engineer a simple circuit with a heating element, a box, and a temperature controller and sell it for $100 or $200 dollars?  I'd buy it tomorrow when I get payed.


   A liquid handling robot: stepper motors that pull a syringe back and forth, tens of thousands of dollars new.  Plate readers & PCR machines also seem really basic in what parts they actually need to work, but getting a nice finished polished product takes a lot of time, effort, and money.  OpenPCR is a good example I often think of, anyone can say a PCR machine is just an aluminium block, a peltier cooler, a fan, and some control board, but when you actually have to engineer all that it gets complicated and expensive.

I suck at engineering and I wish I was better at it, but that's the journey of life I guess, trying to suck less at things.  

I meant to comment on the Plate Reader post recently because a plate reader would be an AMAZING piece of equipment I desperately need, and if it was good enough I'd easily pay $1,000 for one.

I agree with what Sebastian said..."a whole lot of talk". (Which can be said for more than just one piece of hardware)

So as for now Koeng the best DIY liquid handling robot you can afford is probably yourself, with maybe a 9V battery in your pocket if you want to feel more robot-y

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