Thermo Cycler Recommendations

[Wolfgang Schechinger]

Hi Sarah, 

We have several Techne Genius in our labs here. Thy're fast and 
reliable. 
I use mine for ligations, digests and so on, too. It 
doesn't make lots of noise (i.e. it's almost silent) and consumes not 
much space. I have an old needle printer attached to it for checking 
newly programmed methods. 

One disadvantage for me is that you can't use those tubes on stripes 
when you have many samples to process. But maybe I only don't have 
the right block or don't know 'bout the right tubes. And that my 
block holds only 20 tubes. Sometimes I wish the control panel has 
only 8 keys for programming. Setting up new methods is very logical 
and intuitive. It only would be faster if the machine had a numerical 
keypad for entering values directly and not by pressing cursor keys 
endlessly. I also miss a gradient block too when evualuating new 
primers. But if co(i)nsider the price. I would recommend it to 
you. 
Hybaid recently got a new new cycler in their program I would 
like to work with (that would meet many of my requirements described 
here), but I think it's a bit more expensive, so about 6kBucks.

PS.We had a thermo block breakdown lately, and we got a free exchange 
cycler within three days while the other was serviced in the UK)

A Happy New Year! 


Wolfi

> Let me renew an old thread....
> I plan to purchase a PCR Cycler for my laboratory and am considering
> models that allow the blocks to be interchanged. I am most
> interested in the Techne Genius (seems versatile, speedy and the
> price is right) but am also considering the Biometra UnoII and the
> MJ PTC100. I'd appreciate any and all comments on this machines and
> other possible alternates.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Sarah
> ____________________________________________________________________
> ___ Sarah K. Highlander, Ph.D       Department of Microbiology  
> (__==__)        email: sarahh at bcm.tmc.edu
>   & Immunology                 (oo)       *  Voice: 713-798-6311
> Baylor College of Medicine      \/-------/   FAX    713-798-7375 One
> Baylor Plaza                 ||    || Houston, TX  77030-3498       
>   ||    ||
> 
> 
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Wolfgang Schechinger         
University of Tuebingen
email: wgschech at med.uni-tuebingen.de
http://www.medizin.uni-tuebingen.de/~wgschech/research.htm
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