As you may recall, I have had really bad luck with centrifuges in the past. You would think that by third year, I would have figured out this simple piece of laboratory equipment. But alas.... no.
At some point over the summer, the really large old centrifuge in the freezer room across the hall turned into a really large, really expensive, new centrifuge across the hall that happens to play music at the end of each round (My Bonnie, to be precise).
I happen to be mass-producing bacteria at the moment since I am on purification attempt #21,943 (at least) and am going through my bacterial pellets at an alarmingly high rate. I was spinning down bacteria all evening yesterday with no problems whatsoever, and had the last batch to spin down this morning. Samples in, set centrifuge, push start, come back 15 minutes later and... rotor lid is stuck on tight. Three wrenches and a jar of motor oil later... rotor lid is still stuck on tight, and there is no way my samples are coming out, short of sawing through the gazillion dollar rotor.
Would now be an appropriate time to give the centrifuge one good, swift kick and just altogether quit?
Thursday, November 08, 2007
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Hi there!
ReplyDeleteIt's the first time I've visited your blog and I love it! I'm a PhD student too and I'm too tortured by proteins esp. those that won't get out of inclusion bodies! We had the exact same rotor incident last week (thankfully I wasn't involved)! What are the chances?
Anyway, good luck with your purification!
P.S. What are you purifying? Maybe I could help...?
Maria
Sorry to hear of your problems with the centrifuge.
ReplyDeleteFor stress relief, rather than kicking the centrifuge (which might hurt...a lot), I recommend singing along with its merry tune, perhaps using these words in place of the original ones:
running-blogs.com/crowther/2007/11/the_singing_centrifuge.html
Ah! I love your alternative lyrics!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, when the new centrifuge came, I thought I had lost my mind because I kept hearing music randomly... who had the stupid idea to make it sing at the end of each round? As if the giant whirring motor coming to a halt isn't enough to give away that your samples are done spinning?
Anonymous- I deal with a couple of proteins stuck in inclusion bodies, and I concur that they are a real pain. My current quest, however, is NOT in the inclusion bodies, and is proving to be much, much worse. I thought I was getting somewhere this week, and then on Thursday (same day as the centrifuge incident) the AKTAprime ate my samples -- no idea where they wound up, but NOT still on the column and not in the fractions.
Sucky! We had an undergrad forget to put the lid on before turning on the centrifuge, which flung the rotor around for a bit before shutting down. Somehow all survived with only some scorch marks on the inside of the centrifuge from the rubbing metal (and it smelled like burning for weeks).
ReplyDelete....well...all except the undergrad. He was fired.
Thanks for the suggestion, Geeka. We wound up having to get a repairman to come fix the centrifuge. The rotor was still screwed into the bottom, so it couldn't be pulled out separately. Apparently, there is something wrong with the pin that holds the rotor down into the base of the centrifuge, and when it spins, they screw together. Then, when you try to unscrew the lid, both the lid to the rotor and the pin that holds the rotor down turn simultaneously, and get stuck.
ReplyDeleteNow, everyone is afraid to use the centrifuge because they don't want to lose their samples as well!
yeesh, remind me not to buy this centrifuge. sounds like it was designed really poorly!
ReplyDeletei love the song idea and the alternative lyrics. were these people just tired of beeping, or were they inspired by cell phone rings? the world may never know why they spent time putting in that feature while neglecting the essentials.