Pioreactor dev blog #18 - Vial holder

Pioreactor dev blog #18 - Vial holder

We’ve been 3D printing many tools to help us assemble all these Pioreactors as we prepare to launch our first batch. Things like cutting circles into thermal material, assembling caps with tubes/grommets, and even aligning the spinning PCB all use 3D printed tools we designed! You can say our Pioreactors are almost artisanal.

Another cool thing we designed is a special vial holder, so you can organize your experiments with ease:

Figure 1: Newly designed vial holders. 

We allocated 4 slots for vials and are in the process of creating holders of varying sizes. It has a wider bottom versus top for more stability, and debossing under each vial to mitigate potential slipping. Each vial slot is numbered with dots on the base so you won't mix up your samples. It also includes a deboss of our logo!

We decided to go with an open side design for the following reasons: it’s easy to see what's in the tubes you’re using, and it 3D prints easily at an angle. 

Figure 2: Logo deboss.
Figure 3: Side view of our vial holders. 

We’re listing the design of the vial holder on Printables.com, so feel free to download and print it yourself if you have access to a 3D printer!