Some bioreactor producers claim that their control unit (or tower) can be used simultaneously with 2 to 6 or more vessels. And this should be advantageous for the client. However, they do not explain that such a control is in principle sequential. The main control unit has to communicate sequentially with one vessel after the other, read the parameter values and react to the data received and regulate the given parameters. During this time (cycle) other vessels stay unattended. The quality of regulation necessarily suffers from such a procedure. The proposed economy is negative for the user and serves only as a not very fair sales promotion argument.
Additionally, in parallel runs, if a centralized control tower breaks down all connected vessels are concerned. With the MINIFOR bioreactor system, if one MINIFOR unit has a failure, only one fermentation run is concerned and thereby, the financial losses as well as time losses are several times lower.
This problem is well-known by certain producers and they now propose a special control unit for each vessel.
Pushed by economy several producers use displays where the user has to scroll to see the different parameter values on the panel. LAMBDA thinks that the user must have the complete and immediate information about the state of his bioreactor. The need to scroll hides relevant information and is therefore very impractical.
On the other hand, to decrease the price of the fermenter-bioreactor system LAMBDA does not use expensive, color displays or fancy touch screens, but shows all data on a LCD display for each bioreactor vessel. Thereby the same function is fulfilled efficiently at much lower cost.
LAMBDA honestly delivers high quality bioreactors/fermentors, where each vessel has a complete and totally independent measurement and digital control system with all data on a large display. It costs us more but the users will surely appreciate it.