Water Bath

Water Bath Prototype

Driver Board

With the help of a member from my maker space, we are trying to create a working water bath that uses a arduino to control the temperature. If we are able to make it work properly we will open source it. We are looking to develop either a arduino shield or it's own driver board to run the water bath.

We trying to have it set to 42 degrees C. This is the temperature used for bacterial transformation(the heat shock method). It is working very steady with about 0.25 degree C on either side of 42 C. We are going to try at different temperatures next.

The top picture shows the setup, it is a power supply(top middle of picture), an arduino on a driver board(black box next to the power supply) built by a member of my maker space, a heating pad, LM35 temperature sensor and a plastic container(sitting on the heating pad). The lid must be on to bring up the heat and keep it at a steady temperature.

The next picture shows an arduino temperature driver board.

Maker Spaces

Maker spaces or hacker spaces(as some are called) are a great place to meet people and learn from them as well.

From spaces.makerspace.com/

"""
What’s a Makerspace?

To describe them simply, makerspaces are community centers with tools. Makerspaces combine manufacturing equipment, community, and education for the purposes of enabling community members to design, prototype and create manufactured works that wouldn’t be possible to create with the resources available to individuals working alone. These spaces can take the form of loosely-organized individuals sharing space and tools, for-profit companies, non-profit corporations, organizations affiliated with or hosted within schools, universities or libraries, and more. All are united in the purpose of providing access to equipment, community, and education, and all are unique in exactly how they are arranged to fit the purposes of the community they serve.

"""

They have tools from hand tools to drill presses to 3D printers to CNC machines to laser cutters. Some are even biological groups opening up spaces for people with that interest to do experiments with the maker spaces equipment and supplies.

Most maker spaces have a membership fee which can be costly, but I believe that many have open house days where you can visit the spaces and even get help with your projects.

I belong to the one in my city and have built different projects there for my lab. In one of my next posts I will be discussing some of the pieces that I have 3D printed at my maker space. I don't have a 3D printer but there is one at my maker space. There is so much different expertise there to help with electronics and programming, etc. I am glad I found this space.

If you don't have tools or space to work in, need help in learning how to use an arduino, etc. you should look into one today.

You can look for a space near you at:

http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces

or

google "hacker spaces", "maker spaces" your "city".

Revisiting the Incubator Repair

Incubator

I have been working on improving my incubator. I picked up this incubator (see an earlier post) and had to repair it to get it to work. It is basically an old metal box. As you can see I have adding corrugated plastic to the sides and top. This will help keep the temperature stable for my cultures to grow in. It also makes it much easier to clean, disinfect and sterilize . The metal had a acid type smell of old metal. Once cleaned up and the plastic inserted this helped take away the small. I am not sure how long the plastic will last but it is inexpensive and can be found at hardware stores. Therefore I can replace it when needed.

New Centrifuge From the Old

New Incubator

I found this inexpensive centrifuge and brought it home to find it not working. I took it apart and cleaned it up. It only needed rewiring to get it up and running. Now with this I am able to retire my blenderfuge. In the blenderfuge the center piece kept warping and had to be replaced. I believe this was caused by the very high speeds of the blender. The blenderfuge was much faster than this centrifuge but this one will work for my needs.