Important Features to Look for When Shopping for a Colony Counter for Your Lab
If your lab works with bacterial colonies when performing research or other tasks, then you might be thinking about buying a colony counter. A colony counter can be very useful for tracking and counting bacterial colonies, so it's an essential piece of equipment for many labs. If you want to be fully satisfied with the colony counter that you purchase for your lab or if you just want to make sure that you can get as much out of this investment as possible, then make sure that you look for these important features.
Proper Sizing
Many colony counters are designed to work with Petri dishes of certain sizes. Whether your lab normally uses standard-sized Petri dishes or if you work with larger or smaller Petri dishes, you will need to make sure that your new colony counter will be appropriately sized. Then, you don't have to worry about your Petri dishes not working with your colony counter, and you can avoid having to change up the way that you and the others in your lab work with bacterial colonies.
Accurate Counting
Of course, a bacterial colony counter is not going to do your lab much good if it doesn't perform accurate counts of bacterial colonies. Therefore, instead of going with an outdated, used model or an economical model, consider going with a slightly more high-end model that might perform more accurate counts.
Ease of Use With Other Equipment
To make things easier and more cohesive in your lab, you may want to look for a colony counter that can be used with other equipment. For example, consider looking for a colony counter that can be plugged into your lab computer with a USB drive. If you have other lab equipment that you would like to use along with your new colony counter, you may want to determine if the units are compatible with one another.
Warranty Coverage
Even if you buy a high-end colony counter and even if you and the others who work in the lab are using it properly, there is always the chance that something could go wrong with it. Because it's an expensive piece of equipment, you probably don't want to be on the hook to replace it if something goes wrong with it. Many colony counters come with warranty coverage of some type, which can be helpful when you're purchasing expensive laboratory equipment.
To learn more about colony counters, visit a store near you.
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