The Custom-Lab Institute (CLI) is a purpose-driven initiative to offer ready-to-use laboratory tools that I design and manufacture to make my and my colleague’s daily research (and hopefully yours soon, too) easier and cheaper.
In the last few years, more and more researchers began to design and manufacture their own lab tools, especially as technologies like 3D printing and laser cutting became more affordable. Lots of 3D models are deposited to data repositories and made freely available to everyone, to be made even without knowledge of complicated CAD designing software. Unfortunately however, many great designs are rotting at these repositories without having their actual potential exploited, for first things first they remain out of reach to many of those who still have no direct access to hardware like 3D printers. Moreover, the rather rigid, unmodifiable nature of the deposited data format prevents any easy adjustments, or these models can only be reproduced with a specific 3D printing technology, or are constructed with a different unit scale, or just do not fit the custom needs, and so on.
I’d like to bring open science hardware to a broader spectrum of users. Here in The Custom-Lab Institute, not only can you find inexpensive solutions to often overpriced equipment, e.g. magnetic racks, but also things that I design and make, which are precious time-savers often even not available on the market, like the bead dispensers. With time, more and more newly developed tools will be added.
But that’s not all! Because every tool is printed just when it is ordered, I thought why not provide a possibility for the user to customize every tool? Based on this idea, I listed features of every tool, which can be modified in a specific range to your specific needs. Like that, it’s possible, for example, to obtain perfectly fitting bead dispensers. Further individual customization outside the listed features is also possible via personal communication, e.g. a 96-well magnetic rack that fits a nonstandard plate footprint of your liquid handling station.
Apart from feature-customization, I want to constantly integrate feedback and experiences of users to make the tools better at every new print.
Follow The Custom Lab Institute on Twitter to stay up to date!
The Custom-Lab Institute 