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Showing posts from 2014

Getting my Pharmacia LKB Multidrive XL online... now with 3D printing!

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Quite a while back, I bought a used Pharmacia LKB Multidrive XL on eBay. It's a gel electrohphoresis power supply that can output up to 3500 volts at several hundred milliamps. There was a problem, though: Whenever I tried to use it, it just gave me the error "Invalid connector". The unit didn't come with a manual, so I was stumped as to what exactly this error meant. Searching for the manual online didn't yield anything besides a few old forum posts with broken links. The manufacturer, Pharmacia, had since been bought be Amersham, which in turn had been bought by GE Healthcare. It seemed like a long shot, but I rang up the GE Healthcare customer support and asked for the manual. They were amazingly helpful and sent me a PDF. Armed with the manual, I learned that the error I was getting was connected to one of the many safety precautions that were built into the device. First off, the unit has four power outlets. All four need to be plugged in with something,