5. Microscope Cage Incubator

Cellix recommends the Microscope Cage Incubator by Oko-lab for the VenaFlux Platform and Microfluidic SP Series.

The Microscope Cage Incubator is designed to maintain all the required environmental conditions for cell culture all around your microscopy workstation, thus enabling you to carry out prolonged observations on biological specimens and allowing at the same time enough space for other equipment.
Temperature is controlled by blowing warm air into the cage. A tiny thermocouple is inserted into a reference well to control the temperature as close as possible to the sample.
CO₂ may be mixed with air in a control unit and may then be continuously fed into a micro-environmental chamber placed on the microscope stage.
A humidifying module prevents culture medium evaporation
Models for any Leica, Nikon, Olympus and Carl Zeiss inverted microscope are available
Obscuring panels are also available for fluorescence experiments.

Temperature Control Module

The temperature is controlled inside a reference well, by controlling the power of the warm air blower.
Temperature uniformity within the cage is guaranteed by the action of two vents placed into the cage incubator.
The temperature read by the probe is displayed on the control unit and can be stored in computer memory by the Read Temperature software.

Obscuring Panels

Obscuring panels can be assembled with the cage incubator by means of turn to open hinges. They will create a dark environment for your fluorescence experiments.

Microscope Cage Incubator

Microscope Cage Incubator with Obscuring Panels

Thermal Stability within 0.1°C

Warm-air heater and automatic PID controller allow to maintain a therml stability within 0.1°C
Enclosing the microscope and protecting it from changes of ambient temperature minimises thermal focus drift.
Slow warm-air flow avoids any kind of mechanical vibration and tedious acustical noise.

Medium evaporation less than 2% per day

Keeping the humidifying module at the same temperature of the sample allows to maintain medium evaporation below 2% per day, thus enabling to carry out long-lasting time-lapse experiments without altering experimental conditions

Cell proliferation comparable with benchtop incubator

Overall performances assessed by analyzing cell proliferation over time (Cell line: lymphocytes T-jurkat).

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