[DIYbio] Re: DIY electroporator

On Fri, May 6, 2016 at 7:33 AM, Jake <jakestew@mail.com> wrote:

Now I'm interested what the status of DIY electroporators is?

Saw some talk of ESP8266 and other ideas floating around.  I've done a uC controlled flyback cap charger before, so I'm wondering what the actual technical difficulties are that remain?

Charge a cap to a couple kV, then switch it to the cell for the proper length of time with an IGBT?  Anything I'm missing?

I started reading up on it. It looks like you want to be able to apply a voltage between 800v and 2.5 kV with a time delay between 1 ms and 5 ms, at least for e.coli and yeast. It sounds like there might be other types of cells that need lower voltages and lower time delays. Need to read up on this.

I'm still trying to figure out if the voltage discharge curve matters. If it doesn't then it might be possible to skip the capacitors completely and instead use a couple of transformers with multiple taps for different voltages and a

I outlined a possible design that would cost less than $100 in a previous recent thread on this list.

It would be _very_ beneficial to include conductance measurement so you can prevent the electroporator from firing when there's a chance of spiking. Conductance measurement is simple enough that it should be both easy and cheap to add.

You can get cheap 2.5 kV mosfet relays capable of switching at up to 0.1 ms speeds:

  http://www.newark.com/mosfet-solid-state-relays/isolation-voltage/2-5kv/pg/810032199

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marc/juul