Bibby Sterilin has added some deft touches to the controls of its Stuart® benchtop incubator, bringing it bang up to date with the needs of the modern laboratory.

The SI19 incubator (the new version of the SI18) has been specifically designed for the incubation of microtitre plates. Overcoming the problems commonly associated with standard incubators, it provides excellent air circulation, even temperature distribution, and increased humidity.

By blowing pre-heated air from left to right across the chamber, the compact Sl19 spreads warmth evenly across each plate, avoiding fluctuations and improving accuracy. The incorporation of a water tray increases humidity within the chamber to ensure small samples do not dry up during incubation.

Functionally the same, the updated incubator now has push button, microprocessor controls for improved temperature accuracy. Configured with safety in mind, the set temperature - displayed via a bright red LED clearly visible from across the lab - cannot be easily altered accidentally.

In addition, the Sl19 has built-in fault diagnostics so that should a problem occur, an error code will show on the LED display allowing speedy rectification by the service engineer.