We offer a variety of shakers to provide you with the exact shaking motion that your application requires. The terms included here are used throughout the Shaker section to depict the characteristic motion(s) of each shaker.
Orbital motion: The entire platform of an orbital shaker moves in a circular orbit. These shakers have many applications in molecular biology including aeration and prevention of "skin" formation. Many of our orbital shakers will operate inside an incubator or cold room. Always check specifications to determine the proper ambient conditions for shaker use.
Reciprocating motion: The platform on a reciprocating shaker makes a back-and-forth "sloshing" motion required for some test procedures. Many of our shakers provide both an orbital and a reciprocating motion for extra mixing versatility. These "dual-action" shakers are shown with both the reciprocating and orbital symbols.
Figure-eight motion: Figure-eight shakers move in a figure eight pattern, smoothly switching between clockwise and counterclockwise motion. Advantages include faster growth rate, greater cell densities, and higher oxygen transfer rates. Ideal for aerobic cell cultivation.
Vortex motion: Vortex shakers attain speeds up to 3200 rpm for vigorous mixing of capped vessels. Applications include general test tube mixing, biochemical assays, sample preparation, and resuspending cells after centrifugation.
Rotating motion: Rotating shakers gently spin samples in test tubes, flasks, or bottles. Adjustable "tilt" lets you choose rotation angle and therefore the degree of "rise and fall" mixing. Slow, gentle mixing (up to 80 rpm) is best for delicate samples.
Hand motion: Hand-motion shakers duplicate the up and down action associated with a handshake. Applications include DNA extraction, pretreatment of various enzyme reactions, and sample treatment of small amounts of reagent.
Rocking motion: Our platform shakers provide either a rocking "see-saw" motion or a consistent, three-dimensional rocking motion. Use for gentle uniform mixing of blood samples cell suspensions, solutions in test tubes, blots, and dye fixations.