Outfitting a lab on the cheap

A friend of mine does a lot of molecular biology and keeps an incubator at home so she can run a reaction and stop it some time at night without having to make a special trip into the lab. Here are some notes on cheap lab equipment if you’d like to offload some easy steps to your “branch office” at home. Or maybe just flesh out your main lab on the cheap.

Links

Shopping list for a home lab – There are some good ideas in the comments of the post too.
Home made stirplate – A simple project, it can easily be elaborated upon.
Pearl Biotech gel box – They share the plans for the box so you can make your own. (link, bottom of the page)

Online listings

Set up some automated alerts on eBay for other equipment (scientific cameras, PCR machines, scopes, etc.). I haven’t found much on craigslist, but there’s no reason to rule them out, particularly for electronics and computer equipment.

Shopping

American Science & Surplus – A classic. The image above is from their catalog.
Herbach & Rademan – Mostly electronics and mechanical devices.
Measurement Computing – Good, inexpensive DAQs. And they’re supported in MATLAB’s DAQ toolbox.
Arbor Scientific – They’re geared towards the educational market, but they have some great value kits that could find use in a working laboratory.