Maintenance
It is imperative to keep your equipment maintained in order to extend the longevity of your machinery.
Lab Equipment Efficiency
By replacing old lab equipment that is no longer efficient you reduce your carbon footprint and time. By using old equipment you risk the machine shutting down, making an error, get stuck, etc., all which lead to damaged results meaning you would have to restart your project and waste even more materials and money.
Fixing (Keep your Equipment going as long as possible)
Make an effort to send your equipment in for repairs rather than buying new.
Cambridge Biomakespace leverages their community to fix old equipment rather than throwing them away.
- Example, there are a large number of Mass Spectrometry machines still in operation after 25 years.
- It costs around 500GPB to have an Engineer come to site and that can be really costly for a lab. Do a sitewide/Department-wide Fixing day. Get an Engineer in and have everyone bring their malfunctioning equipment over to get fixed.
Glassware
Broken glassware? Check to see if your institute has a glassblowing shop before buying new.
Buy Refurbished
Refurbished Units are usually cheaper. The trick is knowing who has old equipment to sell. Check our our Buy/Sell/Donate section!
Recycle (Taking it for spare parts)
Old machines often need old parts. Just because your machine is dead, doesn’t mean it’s parts can’t be used to save the life of another.
Upcycle (Take antiquated equipment and upgrading it)
An example is taking an old piece of equipment on Windows XP and upgrade it’s IT system to the newest Windows instead of throwing it away.
Tender Process
Insist a minimum lifespan for instruments to insist labs fix rather than replace.
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