Somewhere between yesterday's posts about uselesss junk and useful antiques, there's this. The picture to the right is a tragedy in progress, though is might not look that way: It's an FTIR spectrometer left behind by the previous occupant of my lab.
It's a top-of-the-line instrument, a Bomem DA-8 spectrophotometer, and a new one will set you back better than $100,000. It's no use to me, though, as it's designed to make measurements of spectra in the far infrared-- wavelengths of a couple of microns or more, well past the 800 nm sort of range where I work. So it sits there in the lab, next to one of the optical tables, and ocasionally things get piled on top of it.
I actually made an effort to find somebody to buy it a couple of years ago, and thought I had a buyer, but the deal fell through, so it's still there. If you know anybody who would want one of these, have them contact me, because I'll sell it for a reasonable price.
(In a similarly crass commercial vein, we also have a picosecond pulsed YAG and dye laser system, left behind by the same guy. Again, it's just taking up space in our storage room (you can see a bit of it in the picture in the "Lab Relics" post), so if you've got a use for it, let me know...)
Know any other stories of good equipment tragically going to waste? Leave them in the comments.
Comments
# 1 | Rich Y | May 24, 2007 8:05 AM
There are lots of companies whose business is buying, reconditioning (sometimes, anyway), and selling used lab equipment. You can do a search for "buy used _____" and turn up several. They spam me regularly with emails and catalogs for used electronics and lasers.
You're not going to get as much cash out of a reseller as out of a direct buyer, but at least you get something and it doesn't take up space in your lab.
# 2 | Brian Thompson | May 24, 2007 8:17 AM
I'll give you $5 and half a pack of m&ms for it. If you can wait until next week, I can up that to $10 and a full pack of m&ms. How's that for sweetening the deal?
I don't actually have a use for the machine though. It would make a nifty conversation piece though.
# 3 | Chad Orzel | May 24, 2007 8:19 AM
There's a big scientific equipment reseller (Capovani Brothers) right across the river in Scotia, but they're not really interested in either of these items. The Bomem spectrometer in particular is a little too specialized for them.
# 4 | Sandra Porter | May 24, 2007 9:02 AM
What about e-Bay? Of course, there's the problem of shipping :D
# 5 | Asad | May 24, 2007 10:12 AM
We recently moved into a lab that was formerly occupied by a faculty member who is scaling back his research. Still, he didn't want to put ALL of his equipment into storage...so in the corner of the lab, there are two fancy-schmancy STM's that were until very recently used for cutting-edge materials studies. Now, they're shoved into the corner and covered in plastic.
# 6 | Victor Bortolot | May 24, 2007 12:49 PM
I'd love to have the thing, even for a case of M&Ms. The problem with these guys is the KBr beamsplitter that degrades if not maintained. About $1000 to replace. Does it have a microscope attachment?
# 7 | such.ire | May 24, 2007 2:40 PM
In the lab I worked in as an undergrad, there were two rather expensive real time in-situ IR machines, that were supposed to be used for taking IR scans as reactions were taking place. They got used for one figure in a paper a decade ago, and then that was it...
In another lab I worked in, there was a peptide synthesis machine, for which the manual had been lost. No one bothered to look for instructions on how to use it, because they didn't feel a need for it.
# 8 | Pseudonym | May 24, 2007 9:15 PM
Right now, as I sit at my desk, if I look over my monitor I can see a Phantom haptic device. It's been unused for over two years.
# 9 | David | May 26, 2007 4:45 AM
Last week I was involved in a conversation about the rising cost of higher education. We were hard pressed to account for where all the money went from tuition + goverment funding + grants. Now I know that at least part of the answer is gathering dust in several publically funded labs.