The thread
A modified buttress thread, two and a half turns at a 2.5 mm pitch, with 0.15 mm of running clearance so it turns smoothly wet, gloved or cold. The steep load flank pulls the lid down and holds it.
The Founding Run / Coming to Kickstarter / Black Forest, Colorado
The screw-top
agar plate.
The world's first patent-pending screw-top petri dish, vented for continuous gas exchange. It closes in two turns, it breathes on its own, and it never needs a wrap of parafilm again. The first production run launches on Kickstarter soon.
$1holds your early-bird spot
Early-bird tiers are capped and are the lowest prices the plate will launch at. Reservation holders get the Kickstarter link before it goes public.
0 already on the list
- Founding batch
- 500 / $115
- Vent channels
- 30
- Plate size
- 90 mm
- Ships from
- Colorado, USA
30 VENT CHANNELS
Ø 90 MM PLATE
2 TURNS TO CLOSE
BFC-PD90-001
01 / The problem
Parafilm was never
a design. It was
a workaround.
Every plate you pour gets wrapped by hand. The film stretches, tears, sticks to your gloves, then seals a living culture inside a box with no air. After one use it goes in the bin. The screw top replaces that whole ritual with a thread, and the vents give the culture the exchange it needed in the first place.
02 / How it closes
Three parts doing
one job.
The vents
Thirty vertical channels are cut straight through the lid thread, roughly one per centimetre of circumference. Air moves in and out continuously, and nothing gets a straight line into the dish.
The body
A standard 90 mm plate in 1.25 mm autoclavable polycarbonate, with 0.5 mm internal radii so there is no sharp corner for contamination to sit in. Run it, clean it, autoclave it, run it again.
03 / Engineering
Drawn to the tenth
of a millimetre.
The plate is a parametric solid model, released to the moulder as a fully dimensioned control drawing, not a sketch. Every number below is from the released model, and it is why this campaign can move straight to tooling.
SECTION A-A / BFC-PD90-001 / REV B / POLYCARBONATE / ISO 2768-m
Every plate is vented. The thirty channels are moulded straight through the lid thread, so there is no film, no gasket and nothing to wear out between autoclave cycles.
04 / Planned tiers
Founding tiers.
The tiers planned for launch day. Final prices and limits are set on Kickstarter, and the early-bird list sees them first. Shipping is charged by region after the campaign.
The Founding Batch is the deal: 500 plates at 23¢ each, the cheapest they will ever be. Smaller tiers are for trying it on your bench first.
05 / Early-bird list
Get in before
launch day.
Join the list free and you hear the launch date first. Add $1 and you hold an early-bird spot: the capped tiers at the lowest launch prices, with the Kickstarter link before it goes public.
You're on the list
Your code
To hold your early-bird spot, pay $1 through Michael's PayPal and put in the note, so the payment is matched to you.
Not ready to pay? You're still on the free list and will hear the launch date first.
Your $1 is in. You'll get the Kickstarter link before it goes public.
- $1 is a reservation, not a pledge.Pledges are made on Kickstarter at launch. The $1 holds your place in the early-bird line.
- Early-bird tiers are capped.Reservation holders get the launch link first, before it goes out publicly.
- Changed your mind?Ask before launch and the $1 is refunded.
06 / Stretch goals
What each
milestone unlocks.
$20,000 cuts the tool and delivers the founding batch. Everything past it makes the plate better for every backer, at no extra pledge.
07 / Where the money goes
Every dollar
of the goal.
A $20,000 goal is not a round number pulled from the air. It is what it costs to cut a real injection mould for a threaded, vented, two-part part and run the first batch. Here is the split.
Funding goal
$20,000
08 / Production schedule
From funded
to on your bench.
Estimate
About five months from the day the campaign closes. Small tiers may ship first. Tooling and overseas shipping can move, so this is a conservative estimate with buffer built in, and you get an update at every milestone.
09 / Risks & challenges
The honest
version.
Every honest campaign should say what could go wrong. Here is what is genuinely hard about this one, and what is already done to de-risk it.
10 / What film costs you
Run your
own numbers.
Parafilm is cheap per strip and expensive per year. Put in your own bench and see what the screw top takes off it.
What the film costs you
The parafilm calculator.
2,400strips binned a year
$120spent on film a year
17 hrsat the bench wrapping
11 / Questions
Before you
reserve.
The list hears
it first.
Launch date, early-bird link and first-article photos go to the list before anywhere else. Free to join, $1 to hold a spot.
Reserve for $1