The Life Sciences Electronics Shop is your resource for solving electronic, instrumentation, control, and data acquisition challenges. We work with faculty and staff in the School of Molecular & Cellular Biology and School of Integrative Biology.

Contact & location

Chad Benner, Electronics Technician II, 217-244-3479, cbenner1@illinois.edu

Location: Room 64 Burrill Hall, 407 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL.

Services: We provide the following services:

  • Instrument Repair
  • Microscopes
  • Balances
  • Audio/Video
  • Light Bulb Sales

Instrument repair

We have schematics or service manuals for just about all instruments used in MCB and SIB.

Below is a partial list of equipment we work on:

  • centrifuges
  • water baths
  • incubators
  • power supplies
  • spectrophotometers
  • amplifiers

Microscopes

On-site or carry-in service is provided for your microscopes. We have experience working on all brands and types of microscopes:

  • compound microscopes
  • dissecting microscopes
  • fluorescence microscopes
  • inverted microscopes
  • phase-contrast microscopes
  • petrographics microscopes
  • illuminators
  • fiber-optic illuminators

Services provided for your microscopes and illuminators are cleaning, repair, and adjustment:

  • lens and eyepieces
  • fine and coarse adjustments
  • mechanical stages
  • Kohler alignment
  • phase condensers

Balances

Our ANSI/ASTM Class 1 weights are calibrated to NIST Standards and are ISO 9001 Certified. See us if your balance needs:

  • Calibration
  • Cleaning
  • Repair
  • New lamp

We service all makes and models of balances:

  • Mettler
  • Sartorius
  • Fisher
  • Denver
  • digital
  • top-loaders
  • analytical

Pipettes

We will no longer clean and calibrate your pipettes for you. If you want an outside company to work on your pipettes, try one of the following companies:

Rainin: 800-828-2788 ext. 338

Midwest Scientific: 800-227-9997

Brinkmann Instruments: 800-645-3050

Scientific Calibration: 800-892-9817

AccuTek Laboratories: 800-243-3232

VWR: 800-431-4132 ext. 6333

Novamed: 800-354-6676

Pipet People: 800-253-7064

Audio/Video

The Electronics Shop has designed and built interactive teaching systems for our teaching labs.

The shop also designed and supervised the installation of the audio/video system in the Miller Auditorium, B102 Chemical & Life Sciences Lab. Download our guide to operating the system.

We can help you select and interface audio and video equipment.

Light bulb sales

We stock over 200 different kinds of lamps and bulbs. We have bulbs for many types of equipment:

  • overhead projectors
  • slide projectors
  • microscopes
  • fluorescence microscopes
  • balances
  • fiber optic illuminators
  • spectrophotometers

Bulb types include:

  • halogen
  • incandescent
  • mercury fluorescent (HBO 103W/2)
  • low voltage

If we don't have the bulb you need, we can probably get it.