How To Get Cheaper Lab Equipment
Buying From China
One problem for independent scientists is cost. Lab equipment is expensive.
But you can get much cheaper lab equipment by buying direct from China. You can also buy second hand or through secondary auctions, but I’ve found this harder.
I’ve been ordering a lot of lab equipment from Alibaba or AliExpress. When I first scanned through these websites the prices were so low that I thought that most of the stuff wouldn’t work, or be of low quality.
But for my lab equipment at least, I’ve been wrong.
Most of the stuff I’ve got so far works fine. To do this I try to find things that have legit looking reviews and are not obvious scams. To tell what is an obvious scam, I ask Claude if the price is reasonable given the cost of components, and I usually get an idea of what’s completely fake.
This has now become the default way I buy equipment. I’ve been so impressed that I now suspect that European companies buy from Alibaba, stick a tag on, and jack up the price.
For example, I wanted to buy a magnetic stirrer and hot plate for my chemistry experiments. But the main scientific providers price this at around 300 bucks.
But on AliExpress I looked around and found the same thing for 50 bucks and free shipping. The reviews looked decent. And it’s literally a fifth of the cost. A fifth.
It arrived in a couple of days and works fine. Shipping was just as fast as anything on Amazon. Take a look.
On Alibaba I can also request for custom parts and they arrive fine as well. Here, I’m bartering for a custom Far UVC bandpass filter which they quoted 40 bucks. This would usually be 200 bucks if I ordered it from an optics company in the UK. The customer service is better, and the reps usually speak perfect English.
It came fine.
Wild. Surely this is a no brainer.
I am not sponsored by, endorsing, or non-endorsing anyone in this post.