posted on November 18, 2000 08:03:54 PM
I bought this at a flea market in Albuquerque, NM last summer, I think I paid $3.00 for it. I sell alot of things in the collectable science instruments catagory and this thingy looks like some sort of a scientific instrument but darned if I know what it is. I was thinking that because I bought it at the flea market in Albuquerque and because Sandia National Labs is located in Albuquerque then it may have been used for some sort of experiments at the labs. It is called as best as I can tell a "Micropettor". It was manufactured by SMI Scientific Manufacturing Industries in Emeryville, CA as this is what is printed on the little bottles. In my first image below to the left of the quarter it has printed CAUTION, WHEN INSTALLING PIPET ON MICROPETTOR PLUNGER BE SURE TO PLACE COLOR CODED END ON FIRST. Any ideas on what this thingy is and what it is/was supposed to be used for.
posted on November 18, 2000 08:27:59 PM
Micro-Pettor is a pipette injector which can be used to place a specific amount of something into a test tube, petri dish, or perhaps into a machine like a gas chromatograph. I see a reference to it on the net as a "self-cleaning pipette". It could be used in microbiology or chemistry experiments.
posted on November 18, 2000 08:29:15 PM
It's not a syringe and the metal things screw on the micropettor and as best as I can tell because they are different lenghts they allow the plunger to travel further. Notice the orange thing at the tip of the instrument, this I think has to be the pippet and it is probably installed into something with the micropettor. What the pippet is I don't know or what it's used for.
posted on November 18, 2000 08:33:53 PM
OK- maybe not a vaccination kit- but a micro-pettor used to test for purity (maybe in this case testing the vaccines) or some such.
posted on November 18, 2000 08:46:40 PM
Wow, thanks magazine_guy and switch, so I guess it's not actually a scientific instrument as much as it's a piece medical testing equipment, or maybe it's both.
I've had this thingy for about 6 months now and I guess if it was used it was probably cleaned real good as I am not suffering any ill side effects from handling it, whew.
Just goes to show you that you gotta be careful what you buy at a flea market.
posted on November 19, 2000 01:03:18 AM
The different colored tops are for dispensing different amounts of liquid. It looks like 25, 40, 50 and 60 microliters. You ordinarily would have some pipets to slide over the thin end of the pipettor, they look like little glass straws. The thing that looks like a hex key IS a hex key, it is used to adjust the calibration of the pipettor. I'm not sure what's in the other little containers as I haven't used an SMI pipettor for a long time but I think it is probably some spare parts? This is an fairly expensive item when purchased new. If you want to sell it post it in Everything Else: Equipment:Laboratory. A lot of Lab stuff sells very well.
posted on November 19, 2000 04:27:40 AM
Yeah the little white things are probably spare internal parts. The two little orange thingies could be end covers for the tip like the one on the end of the pipette in the picture. Actually what we would call an eye-dropper is a pipette to lab sales.
Take a look at:
posted on November 19, 2000 08:03:21 AM
So if I am understanding this correctly then the instrument is used for dispensing small amounts of liquid a drop at a time and the pippet at the end of the instrument is used to capture and hold a bigger drop. As best as I can tell the part that looks like a needle is actually a solid piece of metal, it's not hollow like a syringe needle. As far as the colored and numbered parts D25, D40 D50, D60 and the one on the pipetor numbered D30, i've tried installing different ones of these on the pipetor and as best as I can tell all that each of them do is to allow the plunger mechanism to travel at different lengths depending on which one is installed on the pipettor. So again if I am understanding this correctly this means that you would use a different colored and numbered part depending on the length and depth of the vessel containing the liquid to be transfered. The bottles contain more of the orange colored pippets and some small plastic parts, probably spare parts.
Thanks for the info luckysharon, I may attempt to sell it in the Everything Else: Equipment:Laboratory. catagory.
Thanks for the links macandjan, I checked them out and I think I have a better understanding of what this instrument is used for.
posted on November 19, 2000 08:14:24 AM
It is used to place EXTREMELY small quantities of material into analytican equipment. It has NOTHING to do with vaccinations, although these pippetes are used in medical labs. The colored things are what contriols the amount of material the pipette will pick up. The orange thing at the tip is to protect the tip from damage. The "needle" part is really a plunger that (along with a thin glass straw) suck up the liquid to test.
Could be quite salable, because they are EXPENSIVE when brand new.
DTP = also stands for Desk Top Publishing, and many other things. You would have to know what project it was being used for to decide.
posted on November 19, 2000 09:46:33 AM
It is, as others have mentioned in this thread: a device for injecting small doses of sample into an instrument for analysis.(like gas cromatograph, plasma, spectrograph)
You say it is "clean" but is it RADIOACTIVE??
Lots of this stuff gets (shoplifted) stolen from labs by junior staff and part time help cause they think its good for something else.
"Never use a dirty needle" is a good adage.
Since you say it came from near Sandia Labs be cautious!!
posted on November 19, 2000 11:25:36 AM
Wish I knew about eBay when I was buying these for full price out of a Fisher catalogue. 'Course eBay wasn't invented then, neither was the Internet I don't think. Expensive micropipettor very well known brand.
posted on November 19, 2000 11:56:14 AM
feralboy and macandjan, fortunately I have a couple of friends that have testing equipment for radioactivity and such, so I'll get it tested. If someone had lifted this from a lab the chances of it being contaminated are probably slim, so I am not too worried. Besides the fact that I have the entire unit with replacement parts in the box leads me to beleive that it is probably uncontaminated. In otherwords if someone were to lift this from a lab environment they probably wouldn't have gotten the spare parts and box also, I think. They would have just lifted the micropetter because all of the other stuff would be back in the storage cabinet, out of the way of the work surface. All of this of course is assuming that it was lifted/stolen or otherwise gotten in a less than legitimate manner.
posted on November 21, 2000 03:39:11 PM
I contacted the people at the link that magazine_guy had provided and asked them what their micropettors were used for. Here is my email and their reply. The problem is that I need someone to decipher their reply for me, in otherwords, what does this mean and I looked up the words "microhematocrit" and "readacrit" in my dictionary and they aren't there?
My email;
Hello xxxxx,
Can you please give me some information about the SMI 1200 Micro/Pettors that you have for sale on your site. Specifically what I want to know is, what is this instrument used for? Also any other pertinent
information about this instrument would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You,
xxxx xxxxxx
Their reply;
xxxx,
These pipetors are used for blood analysis work. The tips are capilary tubes that are inserted into microhematocrit or readacrit centrifuges.
posted on November 21, 2000 04:03:57 PM
Their reply;
xxxx,
These pipetors are used for blood analysis work. The tips are capilary tubes that are inserted into microhematocrit or readacrit centrifuges.
xxxxx
I am a lab tech and have worked in medical labs for 20 years and believe me this pipettor has nothing to do with a microhematocrit centrifuge. The only similarity to a microhematocrit is that the little glass tips which you slide over the slender end of the pipettor look like a microhematocrit capillary.
You loosen the knurled nut and slide the glass tip (looks like a straw) over the slender end of the pipettor. You then tighten the nut to keep the tip in place. You choose the color coded end depending on how much liquid you want to draw up. They are marked in microliters. A microliter is one thousandth of a ml so 50 microliters equals 0.05 ml.
After you have it assembled you press down on the top, insert the end into whatever liquid you wish to draw up and then release the top. This draws the specified amount into the glass tip. You then dispense it into another container by depressing the top again.
We use these to measure specific amounts of fluid (serum, urine, water, saline, etc). I think that this is probably new never used simply because every lab that I have ever worked in, we immediately remove them from the box, throw the box away, put the pipettor in a rack or drawer and dump the spare parts in a junk drawer full of miscellaneous parts. This ensures that when you need the spare parts, you can never find them.
Yellowstone, if you want to email me about this you can, I don't read the board regularly.
posted on November 21, 2000 05:58:07 PM
luckysharon is right on the money. I think the response from the manufacturer was saying that the glass tips are "like" the tubes used in the microhematocrits (really reassuring when the people who sell the stuff are so knowledgeable, isn't it? ). How many non-lab people know what those look like anyway?
Seriously, these are some of the BEST micropipettors I've used, and if the lab community is equipment shopping on Ebay, it will sell. New ones retail for over $100, and this one appears to be adjustable, which makes it even more expensive. You got a steal at $3.00. Do the happy dance!!!
posted on November 21, 2000 08:36:05 PM
At this point I am not real concerned with how much money I may make on selling it. I am more concerned With the points that feralboy and macandjan had made as to it's possible contamination and oh yeah Pocono also. That is why I emailed the people in the link that magazine_guy provided and to try to find out more info on this type of instrument.
Lucksharon has dispeled any worries I had before by saying that she thinks that this is probably new never used simply because every lab that I have ever worked in, we immediately remove them from the box, throw the box away, put the pipettor in a rack or drawer and dump the spare parts in a junk drawer full of miscellaneous parts
Anyways, this was an enjoyable conversation for me on this subject and I want to thank all that participated in it.
). How many non-lab people know what those look like anyway?