Sigh, here I go on another expensive crazy project. I'm starting a small tissue culture lab. The goal of this project is to breed orchids and maybe some other plants, experiment with different procedures, and produce plants to trade/sell. Eventually if things go well I will turn it into a on-the-side hobby business. I bought all of the equipment and supplies I'll need last month, and hope to start planting this weekend!
Early September I bought wood, a HEPA filter, a fan, and everything else to build a laminar flow hood from scratch. This is the filter: 0-007-4-19-06-su-52-00-e0988 flanders hepa air filter
It cost $166 including shipping. To push air through the filter I got a furnace blower fan from a junkyard for $20.
Which is something I'm stuck on. I cannot find out how to wire it! There isn't a wiring diagram on the motor, and I've searched for hours on the internet trying to find the answer. The model number shows zero results and searching for the wire colors hasn't turned anything up either. Anyone know how to do this? I tried a few combinations but can't get the thing to power up.
Anyways, here are three boxes of wood.
Work area
Top is 1/4" plexiglass and bottom and sides are coated in 2-part epoxy resin.
Filter housing
The opening is the same dimensions as the filter area. To install the filter I will run a thiiiick bead of silicone sealant around the inside of the box opening, and set the filter on so it lines up. I may attach it with a few bolts, dunno yet.
Fan housing
The two openings are for 20"x20" furnace filters. The fan box will sit on top of the filter box, and the work box will hang off the front of the filter box. All I have to do yet is get the fan working, cut a hole in the top of the filter box and mount the fan, attach the three boxes together, and make a stand.
Once I finish the laminar hood I can get to work planting a few hundred nepenthes seed from ebay. If I can't finish my hood this weekend I'll have to break down and use this one I bought.
I was at an orchid show and bumped into a woman from the orchid society near me. We got talking and she told me a member of the club is getting out of TCing and selling all his equipment. Wish I found this out BEFORE I bought almost everything I needed . But he had a lot of containers and I didn't have any yet, so I went and picked up all his stuff. 300 quart-size milk bottles, thirty 500mL erlenmeyer flasks, 12 Zuma flasks, all the small equipment/tools, a flow hood, tons of dry media, and thousands of unused orchid seed. All for $500.
After buying and sorting through all that junk, I made up some flasks. I have 20 milk bottles of 25% MS+vit and a few to try out the orchid seed. How I prepared my media is first measure out ingredients for one liter of media. The MS salts came in 1L size packets. I dissolved this in 100mL of RO/DI water to make a 10x concentrate. To make a liter of 25% strength MS to go into flasks I first measured out one liter of water and brought to a boil on the stove. To the boiling water I added 25mL of my MS stock solution, 26g of table sugar, and 6g of agar. I stirred this for 10 seconds, turned of the heat and continued stirring until everything was fully dissolved. I measured the pH, though I hadn't calibrated my meter, and it showed 5.2 so I didn't bother adjusting it. After leaving the media to cool for five minutes I put 100mL of media into 10 milk bottles. The bottles are set on their side which gives a large surface of media about 1/2" thick. To sterilize the flasks I used a pressure cooker. I stacked 5 milk bottles on their sides inside the pressure cooker, closed it and turn the burner on high. It took about ten minutes to get up to 15psi. Once it reached 15psi I set a timer for 15 minutes. When the timer went off I came back and turned off the burner, and left it to cool. After a week none of my flasks are contaminated. Oh, the jars are sealed with rubber stoppers that have a hole in the middle stuff with cotton.
My first project is going to be some nepenthes seed. I ordered 15 different kinds from albermarlesounds on Ebay. N. mirabilis var. echinostoma, ampullaria red w/ green lip, amp red with dark spots, and green with red lip, inermis, jacquilinea, glabrata, jamba, maxima, adrianii, eustachya red, rafflesiana nivea, hirsuta red, aristolochiodes, and albomarginata red. I haven't ever grown nepenthes from seed so I'm hoping I get something out of this :/. I also got two pods of N. singalana x (ventricosa x alata) from a member here. To hedge my bets I went and sowed some of each variety the normal way. Here are trays under four t5's.
For putting the seed in TC I will try sterilizing with bleach. Ten percent for 10 minutes or so. The flasks I have prepared already don't have Plant Preservative Mixture (PPM) in them and most people have trouble sterilizing nepenthes seed with bleach without killing them, so I will make some flasks with PPM and try some both ways. Luckily the batch of junk I bought came with a few vials of PPM
Early September I bought wood, a HEPA filter, a fan, and everything else to build a laminar flow hood from scratch. This is the filter: 0-007-4-19-06-su-52-00-e0988 flanders hepa air filter
It cost $166 including shipping. To push air through the filter I got a furnace blower fan from a junkyard for $20.
Which is something I'm stuck on. I cannot find out how to wire it! There isn't a wiring diagram on the motor, and I've searched for hours on the internet trying to find the answer. The model number shows zero results and searching for the wire colors hasn't turned anything up either. Anyone know how to do this? I tried a few combinations but can't get the thing to power up.
Anyways, here are three boxes of wood.
Work area
Top is 1/4" plexiglass and bottom and sides are coated in 2-part epoxy resin.
Filter housing
The opening is the same dimensions as the filter area. To install the filter I will run a thiiiick bead of silicone sealant around the inside of the box opening, and set the filter on so it lines up. I may attach it with a few bolts, dunno yet.
Fan housing
The two openings are for 20"x20" furnace filters. The fan box will sit on top of the filter box, and the work box will hang off the front of the filter box. All I have to do yet is get the fan working, cut a hole in the top of the filter box and mount the fan, attach the three boxes together, and make a stand.
Once I finish the laminar hood I can get to work planting a few hundred nepenthes seed from ebay. If I can't finish my hood this weekend I'll have to break down and use this one I bought.
I was at an orchid show and bumped into a woman from the orchid society near me. We got talking and she told me a member of the club is getting out of TCing and selling all his equipment. Wish I found this out BEFORE I bought almost everything I needed . But he had a lot of containers and I didn't have any yet, so I went and picked up all his stuff. 300 quart-size milk bottles, thirty 500mL erlenmeyer flasks, 12 Zuma flasks, all the small equipment/tools, a flow hood, tons of dry media, and thousands of unused orchid seed. All for $500.
After buying and sorting through all that junk, I made up some flasks. I have 20 milk bottles of 25% MS+vit and a few to try out the orchid seed. How I prepared my media is first measure out ingredients for one liter of media. The MS salts came in 1L size packets. I dissolved this in 100mL of RO/DI water to make a 10x concentrate. To make a liter of 25% strength MS to go into flasks I first measured out one liter of water and brought to a boil on the stove. To the boiling water I added 25mL of my MS stock solution, 26g of table sugar, and 6g of agar. I stirred this for 10 seconds, turned of the heat and continued stirring until everything was fully dissolved. I measured the pH, though I hadn't calibrated my meter, and it showed 5.2 so I didn't bother adjusting it. After leaving the media to cool for five minutes I put 100mL of media into 10 milk bottles. The bottles are set on their side which gives a large surface of media about 1/2" thick. To sterilize the flasks I used a pressure cooker. I stacked 5 milk bottles on their sides inside the pressure cooker, closed it and turn the burner on high. It took about ten minutes to get up to 15psi. Once it reached 15psi I set a timer for 15 minutes. When the timer went off I came back and turned off the burner, and left it to cool. After a week none of my flasks are contaminated. Oh, the jars are sealed with rubber stoppers that have a hole in the middle stuff with cotton.
My first project is going to be some nepenthes seed. I ordered 15 different kinds from albermarlesounds on Ebay. N. mirabilis var. echinostoma, ampullaria red w/ green lip, amp red with dark spots, and green with red lip, inermis, jacquilinea, glabrata, jamba, maxima, adrianii, eustachya red, rafflesiana nivea, hirsuta red, aristolochiodes, and albomarginata red. I haven't ever grown nepenthes from seed so I'm hoping I get something out of this :/. I also got two pods of N. singalana x (ventricosa x alata) from a member here. To hedge my bets I went and sowed some of each variety the normal way. Here are trays under four t5's.
For putting the seed in TC I will try sterilizing with bleach. Ten percent for 10 minutes or so. The flasks I have prepared already don't have Plant Preservative Mixture (PPM) in them and most people have trouble sterilizing nepenthes seed with bleach without killing them, so I will make some flasks with PPM and try some both ways. Luckily the batch of junk I bought came with a few vials of PPM