Dec202010December 20, 2010December 20, 20100Commentby L.

Open source orbital shaker

Posted in Hardware

This is a nicely done (and award-winning) orbital shaker. Orbital shakers can often cost on the order of $1500. This one can be custom built for about $150, with additional units costing about $60 (a single controller and power supply can run many plates independently). It’s high quality too. The use of stepper motors ensures that the shake speeds are stable, smooth, and reproducible. (link)

This exact version might not fit everyone’s needs, but what’s great is that it is an excellent starting point for any variations. For example, I’d consider replacing the plastic tubing (which is clever) for mechanical parts. Adapting it to work for different sizes of plates and flasks would be good. Sizing it to fit in whatever incubator used is easy. Modifying the shaking mechanisms would allow a second motor to set the shaking amplitude.

Building it off of an Arduino is great because it enables up a whole host of easy-to-implement features:

  • Program a Processing GUI to set speeds and timers for each shaker independently (via USB).
  • Smoothly ramp up and ramp down shaking speeds.
  • Make it internet-accessible. Never again wonder if you left the shaker going, or worry about leaving it on too long. Just bring up the web page and turn it on or off, or change the settings.

    • All of these things are quick to set up, thanks to the excellent community of Arduino users who write tutorials and make easy-to-use packages.

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