[Nhcoll-l] Home grown solution for extracting racks from cryo dewars

[Bentley, Andrew Charles]

Hi all

I thought I would share a recent solution we have implemented for extracting long, heavy cryo racks from cryo dewars.  We have some smaller stature folks using our cryo facility that were having problems extracting the 15 box racks from the dewar due to their unwieldy height and weight (as much as 22 pounds each when full).  So, we devised a system of using a commercial winch (we chose this one from Northern Tool for about $100 - http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_120327_120327) like you would find on the front of a vehicle and attached it to the wall above the dewar.  The cable is then fed through an eye hook above the opening of the dewar with a modified hook at the end designed by our Facilities and Operations folks here at KU.  These winches come with a remote for raising and lowering the cable.  We then had our Facilities and Operations folks lengthen the cable and place an eye hook on the wall next to the dewar to hold the remote out of the way.  So, we can now open the lid of the dewar, lower the hook, "grapple" the two handles at the top of the rack and raise it out of the dewar.  We have also manually bent the handles on our racks so that they do not lie flush and are easier to "grapple" - as seen at the Field Museum.  By using your hand, you can then lower the rack onto the stairs at the front of the dewar, remove what is necessary and return it to the dewar in the same way.  It works surprisingly well even and even the stronger of our staff are now starting to use it.

Would be happy to share further details with anyone who is interested.

Thanks

Andy

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Andy Bentley
Ichthyology Collection Manager
University of Kansas
Biodiversity Institute
Dyche Hall
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
Lawrence, KS, 66045-7561
USA

Tel: (785) 864-3863
Fax: (785) 864-5335
Email: abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>
http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu<http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu/>

SPNHC President-Elect
http://www.spnhc.org<http://www.spnhc.org/>

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