Incubated Shaker

Introduction 

Orbital Incubated shakers are a critical piece of equipment in almost every lab. They are found hiding in corners in common rooms, sharing prominent space on lab benchtops, living in hallways, shaking away, quietly growing your cultures while other research work is being performed. Incubated Shakers are so commonly used that little thought is given to them until one stops working or a new lab is being set up, then selecting the right shaker to meet your needs can become a daunting task. The intention of this article is to guide you through the incubated shaker selection process answering important questions that will make selection easy and ensure that you purchase the right incubated shaker to meet your needs for many years to come. There are several key questions that you should ask yourself before beginning the search for the right incubator shaker.

Units typically range from the smallest being approximately 18"L x 14"W x 7"H for a benchtop up to the largest at approximately 34"L x 47"W x 25"H for a large stackable floor model and a variety of sizes in between. Various options are available to accommodate a wide range of vessel sizes such as Erlenmeyer flasks, microwell plates, beakers, separatory funnels and centrifuge tubes.

Orbital incubator shakers offer a wide range of temperature capabilities to meet specific growth requirements from refrigerated models that will go down to 4ºC for protein expression applications to high temperature units that will go up to 60ºC for growth of thermophiles. 

Some models will shake as slow as 15 rpm for slow speed staining applications and go as high as 500 rpm. Speed ranges can vary depending on user interface type (analog or digital) or have speed limitations if stacked. 

There is a wide variety of clamps available for Erlenmeyer flasks, separatory funnels, microwell plates, 

beakers, and test tubes. For oddly shaped vessels such as volumetric flasks and media bottles, adjustable vessel platforms with roller bars sandwich containers between them to hold them in place. For slow speed applications under 250 rpm adhesive mats and tapes are available to accommodate various vessel sizes. It is important to list out all of the labware you want to shake.

Most manufacturers offer dedicated platforms which are designed to shake only a single vessel size such as a flask. These platforms provide maximum capacity and come with clamps installed versus universal platforms that provide maximum flexibility for using a mix of different size labware on a single platform. The univeral platform comes with numerous mounting holes to allow you to add and interchange clamps and test tube racks at your discretion. 

Sometimes this dictates what size shaker you will have to consider. Some manufacturers offer creative 

solutions such as one shaker that can accommodate multiple sizes of platforms or platforms that stack to double capacity, not the footprint.

All incubator shakers have weight limits for maximum performance. Consider a shaker with a triple eccentric drive mechanism. Triple eccentric drives permit handling of heavy workloads versus shakers that use single eccentric drive mechanisms. 

If speed and temperature accuracy are important, steer towards digital shakers as they are more precise. Data is displayed through an LED screen as opposed to analog controls. This feature may be important if repeatability is required.

If several individuals are using the incubated shaker in the lab, it may be beneficial to purchase additional platforms for quick vessel changes. In this way if one researcher grows bacteria in a centrifuge tube and another grows yeast cultures in Erlenmeyer flasks, then having their clamps attached to different platforms may save vaulable time. 

Incubator Shakers range in price from approximately $1,500 for small open air bench top models to $15,000 or more for large stackable shakers.