ffutures: (Mad scientist)
ffutures ([personal profile] ffutures) wrote2011-07-01 02:00 pm
Entry tags:

Gloating now... apart from one regret...

About a week ago I asked on a technician's forum if anyone knew of a cheap source of electric heating mantles for chemistry, normal price about £150+ each depending on size. Didn't get any replies, wasn't very surprised.

So on Wednesday evening this week I heard from someone who had a few to get rid of - a college chemistry department that was shutting down. Agreed a price by phone yesterday morning, and they arrived today - six of them, four small and two large, for a total of £50 inc. postage, about 5% of the usual list prices, and all with recent electrical test certificates.

Now I'm REALLY annoyed that we bought one full price at the end of last week...

I think I'll ask if anyone has a spare mass spectrometer. After all, you never know...

[identity profile] armb.livejournal.com 2011-07-01 02:36 pm (UTC)(link)
> spare mass spectrometer

You do realize you'll still have to buy one full price first before you have the cheap ones offered? :-)

[identity profile] keristor.livejournal.com 2011-07-01 03:14 pm (UTC)(link)
An interesting version of BOGOF (Buy One Get Several Cheap, BOGSC?). (Do mass spectrometers go cheep?)

[identity profile] ffutures.livejournal.com 2011-07-01 03:26 pm (UTC)(link)
They probably go "ping" or say "Hi, I cost as much as a good car" or "Hi, I'm a piece of crap that costs as much as a medium-priced car that's going to explode without giving you any results."

[identity profile] ffutures.livejournal.com 2011-07-01 03:26 pm (UTC)(link)
True - maybe not such a good idea then, we don't have £20-50K to spare

[identity profile] pauldormer.livejournal.com 2011-07-01 03:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Let me know if you get any interocitors.

[identity profile] ffutures.livejournal.com 2011-07-01 03:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Or dilithium crystals, warp cores, fluid links, etc...

[identity profile] pengshui-master.livejournal.com 2011-07-01 03:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Actually, I could do with a spare STEM (Scanning Tunnelling Electron Microscope - as opposed to any other rendition of that ETLA) if
you know of one.

One of our old customers used to make Mass Spec and similar machines, he occasionally had problems we helped him with , but it was really odd when he was talking about the std dev. of the sensor output voltage.

It took us a while to realise he was talking about the RMS noise.

[identity profile] ffutures.livejournal.com 2011-07-01 07:16 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm only in a secondary school, cool stuff like that doesn't really come my way, unfortunately.

[identity profile] pengshui-master.livejournal.com 2011-07-01 08:02 pm (UTC)(link)
That's what I thought. The comment was more in just than hope.

OTOH, if any of your readers .....