Measuring temperature, humidity, and CO2

[Oliver Biehlmaier-2]

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Dear list readers,

I guess you all know the problem of dying cells in incubators during live-cell experiments.
The question that always arises from such a bad experiment is: Was the incubation system working correctly and the cells were bad or vice versa?

The only way for facility staff to prove that the incubation system works correctly is measuring all those values.
So far we only measured temperature and humidity by using a simple data logger (e.g. Lascar Electronics EL-USB-2, MSR145 data logger). If you are doing the measurements you can either do it the sloppy way and just place the logger somewhere close to the sample on the stage or actually use a more sophisticated version of the respective data logger where you can connect an external sensor that can be used to measure directly in the medium in the respective dish or chamber-slide. So far, we were going for the sloppy version.

The more difficult part is the measurement of CO2. I searched the net and did not find a suitable one to measure the CO2-concentration in a stage incubator. The only ones that I found with external sensors are terribly expensive (>850$)...

How are you guys measuring those values? Do you have a tip for a reliable but reasonably priced Co2-detector?

Thank you very much for your help!

Cheers,
Oliver

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Oliver Biehlmaier, PhD
Head of Imaging Core Facility
Biozentrum
University of Basel
Klingelbergstrasse 50/70
4056 Basel
Switzerland
Email:     [hidden email]
http://www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/imcf
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[Alessandro Esposito]

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Dear Oliver,
  I have started to control optomechanics with servos for robotics
applications. Whenever the specifications are sufficient for the applications,
we save a lot of money.

Our controllers was equipped with a sensor for temperature and humidity:

http://www.active-robots.com/sensors/temperature-humidity/phidgets-
humidity-temperature-sensor.html

I did not use it, but I see there is also a sensor for CO2:

http://www.active-robots.com/sensors/gas/co2-carbon-dioxide-gas-sensor-
module.html

I am intereted in it and I am going to buy one in the future. I would discourage
to buy these for H&S as they would not be certified, but for monitoring the
status of the microscope should be sufficient.

Our GUI to control our multi-modal two-photon microscope triggers a warning
when the temperature of the room drift of more than 2 degrees over the
course of one experiment.

With these + controllers and little VB programing you can have what you wish
for very little money (if specs suffice for your applications).

Cheers,

Alessandro