[Drosophila] equipment Q

[sandra schulze]

Hi there fly world.

I am a fly person but this is an equipment question. I can't seem to
find something like this forum for equipment related Qs. A grant has
come in (hurrah) and I HAVE to purchase an imager (has many names -
you know - that thing that comes with a dark room and a CCD cooled
camera that can detect fluorescence, chemiluminescence etc. I need it
for westerns, Southerns, northerns etc).

I have researched three makes, all second ranking instruments (so,
around the 25K range - no live animal imaging or anything fancy like
that). Here they are.

1. UVP EC3 Imaging system with a BioChemi camera
2. Perkin Elmer Geliance 600 imaging system
3. UltralLum Omega 12iC

Biorad also has one (ChemiDoc system) but i don't have specs for it.

Bottom line is that UVP is the most minimal for the price (buying for
the name i guess), Perkin Elmer and Ultralum roughly similar and a
little more stuff than UVP, but Perkin Elmer has a good reputation and
Ultralum - well - i don't know really. It is the cheapest.  On the
third hand, Perkin Elmer is new to the imager game, and this unit has
no hands-on controls - all through a computer.

Any one have any feedback?

Cheers,

Sandra Schulze
Western Washington University
Bellingham WA
USA