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Hi all, was rummaging through the upcoming military auctions on pickles and saw this flow hood... Auction starts 6/7/23 AFM539 – Laminar Flow Work Station Note: Used,... - Pickles Hopefully someone from our community snaffles up a bargain and puts it to good use :-) Note: Might be worth posting here if you decide to bid - you and your neighbor might be bidding against each other! You might be able to pair up and share etc... better than bidding against each other and over inflating the price... Good luck! It should go for a reasonably low price I would think as it's 'out of character' for these auctions which are mostly trucks, jeeps and unimogs :-)

I have an old Gelman Sciences Australia Laminar Flow cabinet class I. Model CF43S From the serial # it looks like it was made in 1988. Fuck it's been a corker of a unit. If you're purchasing one new, or even secondhand, I'd recommend them. Of course Gelman Sciences Australia no longer exists the way it did, the company still exists as Gelaire. I have yet to contact them to see if they have any info on the model, but from experience with other equipment the chances of any documentation from that era are fuckall. Last few months the fan has started to make bearing whine noises- especially when it's hot ( I don't have aircon in the lab right now, dammit ). Too broke to bring in a specific technician to replace the fan and test the filter. I'd like to at least find somewhere to buy a similar unit for cheap and install it myself, or to compare the cost of me replacing it with a non-genuine part against the cost of getting a tech down here ( incl. travel time ) to do the whole thing and under warranty I've looked online but can't find a manual, unsurprising since 1988 wasn't a great year for online PDFs ;) Anyone here working with these, or similar units who could advise? Would it be just a case of looking at the diameter of the fan and picking something off Alibaba? Brands to avoid? Anything else I need to know? Took the pre-filter off, it looks to be bolt-on. It could well be a standard blower fan and I might be able to buy something cheap and slot it in the old unit's place. As quickly as possible and on a cool day so as to prevent anything chunky from getting into the airstream/ the seals from warping. The only way to make sure it's still a closed system would be to do the old waft-with-a-stick-of-incense and to check it with some open petri dishes for 30s, 1 min, 3 min etc. And panic if I warped the seals during replacement and then fork out for a technician to visit There's a compliance and info plate which can't be seen unless I fully pull the top steel plate off the unit. If I can avoid that, I will. That shit never ends well when you're working alone and it's mission critical How realistic is this whole scenario? I know a few here have had problems with the airstream in smaller portable units when seals warp or shift and allow pathogens to find a place to live Have pics, put em up later Happy birthday to my beautiful Gelman Sciences Australia Horizontal Laminar Flow Cabinet. 30 years, 20 of them with me :D