Confocal Charges

[Daniel Mackay-3]

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http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal

Sorry for repeating myself - I posted a similar query 3 or 4 years ago, but
as it is now high time for me to increase our charges I'm wondering what to
increase them to.
We have a well-subscribed Zeiss 510 Meta with UV, Argon and 2 HeNe lasers.
At present I charge internal users (within our Institute) £20.00 per hour
and external users £25.00 per hour.
(I don't charge for inductions which I give to new users, which are
typically one, two or sometimes three sessions of 2 hours each; or help to
relative beginner users, which amount to the odd half hour here or there.)
I am considering increasing to £30 and £35 respectively.
Is this about right?
Views?
Thanks in advance.
Danny

[Armstrong, Brian]

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http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal

Hello, we have a similar instrument and have similar charges (for available microscpopes you follow the link in my signature.
LSM 510META NLO $25 US inside user, $50 outside user, free training for 2 sessions, users must pass a written exam before using the instruments on their own. I am not sure how this compares with the current exchange rate!

Brian D Armstrong PhD
Light Microscopy Core Manager
Beckman Research Institute
City of Hope
1450 E Duarte Rd
Duarte, CA 91010
626-359-8111 x62872
http://www.cityofhope.org/SharedResources/LightMicroscopy


-----Original Message-----
From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Daniel Mackay
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 8:40 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Confocal Charges

Search the CONFOCAL archive at
http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal

Sorry for repeating myself - I posted a similar query 3 or 4 years ago, but
as it is now high time for me to increase our charges I'm wondering what to
increase them to.
We have a well-subscribed Zeiss 510 Meta with UV, Argon and 2 HeNe lasers.
At present I charge internal users (within our Institute) £20.00 per hour
and external users £25.00 per hour.
(I don't charge for inductions which I give to new users, which are
typically one, two or sometimes three sessions of 2 hours each; or help to
relative beginner users, which amount to the odd half hour here or there.)
I am considering increasing to £30 and £35 respectively.
Is this about right?
Views?
Thanks in advance.
Danny


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[Dale Callaham]

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http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal

Danny,

If it is high time to increase the charges, it would seem that you must
have already established a proper charge..... :-)

Dale



Daniel Mackay wrote:

> Search the CONFOCAL archive at
> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>
> Sorry for repeating myself - I posted a similar query 3 or 4 years ago, but
> as it is now high time for me to increase our charges I'm wondering what to
> increase them to.
> We have a well-subscribed Zeiss 510 Meta with UV, Argon and 2 HeNe lasers.
> At present I charge internal users (within our Institute) £20.00 per hour
> and external users £25.00 per hour.
> (I don't charge for inductions which I give to new users, which are
> typically one, two or sometimes three sessions of 2 hours each; or help to
> relative beginner users, which amount to the odd half hour here or there.)
> I am considering increasing to £30 and £35 respectively.
> Is this about right?
> Views?
> Thanks in advance.
> Danny

[Boswell, Carl A - (cboswell)]

Search the CONFOCAL archive at
http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal

Hi Daniel,

It would seem that a simple bit of arithmatic would answer the question.
For instance, determine how much income you needed to generate over the last
few years.  Then figure out how much you did generate.  Then find the
difference between the latter and the former.   If the result is negative,
increase the cost appropriately.  If you have a service agreement, then the
estimates are even easier.  Since you have a facility with some history,
this should be much easier to determine than someone starting from scratch.
Cheers,

Carl

Carl A. Boswell, Ph.D.
Molecular and Cellular Biology
University of Arizona
520-954-7053
FAX [phone]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Mackay" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 8:40 AM
Subject: Confocal Charges


Search the CONFOCAL archive at
http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal

Sorry for repeating myself - I posted a similar query 3 or 4 years ago, but
as it is now high time for me to increase our charges I'm wondering what to
increase them to.
We have a well-subscribed Zeiss 510 Meta with UV, Argon and 2 HeNe lasers.
At present I charge internal users (within our Institute) £20.00 per hour
and external users £25.00 per hour.
(I don't charge for inductions which I give to new users, which are
typically one, two or sometimes three sessions of 2 hours each; or help to
relative beginner users, which amount to the odd half hour here or there.)
I am considering increasing to £30 and £35 respectively.
Is this about right?
Views?
Thanks in advance.
Danny

[Gyorgy Vereb]

Search the CONFOCAL archive at
http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal

From my calculations and experience of costs over the past five years on
roughly the same instrument this is probably OK if you have about 30 hours of
usage per week.
cheers, gyorgy

[Martin Spitaler]

Search the CONFOCAL archive at http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal Hi Daniel, this really depends on what you have to cover with the charges. According to our FEC (full economic costs) calculations, the full costs of running a confocal are around £55 per hour. We haven't been around for long enough (~1 year full size) to know how true this is, but talking to other facility in the UK that's pretty realistic. FEC includes everything, service contracts, depreciation, running costs (objectives, material), little spare parts (filters etc.), salaries, a bit of offline computing and software usage. So it really depends how much you need to recover through your charges. For more details you can contact me outside the list. Best regards, Martin Martin Spitaler, PhD FILM - Facility for Imaging by Light Microscopy - Facility Manager - Sir Alexander Fleming Building, desk 401 Imperial College London / South Kensington Exhibition Road London SW7 2AZ UK Tel. [phone] Fax [phone] E-mail [hidden email] Website: http://imperial.ac.uk/imagingfacility