I bought a used industrial robot gripper off eBay. It came with this tube still firmly clamped in the jaws.

    by MrRowodyn

    36 Comments

    1. I would check with a relevant government agency first. Before attempting to remove that tube.

    2. I believe there was an episode involving a robot hand on Big Bang Theory… Please take notes before attempting “stuff”

    3. Could be the gripper was originally designed, or is regularly sold to, chemical labs and need to cater to this use case, so they have a bunch of tubes for testing and just decide to use them for shipping too.

      Or they accidentally left the zombie virus in it.

    4. Can’t wait to see this post in the news a few weeks from now as the origin of a new pandemic

    5. OneTravellingMcDs on

      Is there writing on the tube? That would indicate it was used for something.

      At least it made it’s way all the way from *Korea* without it breaking.

    6. CLONE-11011100 on

      In the immortal works of Mike Wazowski:
      ***“Put that thing back where it came from or so help me…”***

    7. absentparachute on

      I work in a clinical infectious disease lab and from my best guess is this tube was probably used as demonstration or for travel purposes.

      That type of media usually is a liquid and given that their doesn’t appear to be any liquid or residue in the tube, it probably was never filled. This is why I believe it was for display or transport.

      Regardless its in your best interest to treat it as if its infectious material. Only handle with disposable gloves or with a disposable barrier such as an inverted ziplock. Put the tube in the bag and maybe call a local clinic or Healthcare facility to request disposal since it shpuld be disposed in biohazard.

      Wash your hands with warm water and soap for 20 seconds and you’ll be a ok.

    8. Oh man, that is a gripper from a lab automation machine, most likely an archiver. I replaced/repaired so many of those at a previous job. Don’t ask me details on how to fix it because it was mostly percussive maintenance on an instrument that the actual qualified technicians would take days to get around to showing up to fix, despite us being a very high volume, high priority lab. Couldn’t say if this is the same manufacturer.

    9. I think you can relax. That tube should be full of a reddish liquid. It would also have a nasopharyngeal swab in it if it was being used to transport patient specimen.

      These are used to test for COVID, Flu, RSV, Bordetella, Epstein Barr, etc. Lots of uses and not just viral.

    10. Robots are almost always shipped with fixtures that hold the end effectors and arms firmly in place. These are typically expensive machines meant for precision and it would be a shame to have them be off their home position and point of origin by 0.5mm or more when you need it.

      I would not put it past the seller just putting something in there – for what it looks like the purpose is-to handle those tubes – to keep the end effectors from damage during shipping.

    11. I’m late to the party here, but that tube in those grippers suggest it was attached to some sort of Hospital Lab equipment (I can’t really identify which one). Depending on where you got it, I’d be VERY wary of handling it. The tube itself usually contains 3-4 mL of a pink media which is the liquid that allows whatever pathogen to stay alive prior to being tested.

      Assumed everything there is biohazardous (put in a plastic bag labeled “Biohazard” and wipe down anything it touched with bleach) and call whoever sent that to you with a polite but firm “What the fuck?”

      Edit: Just noted you said “eBay”. So contact the seller and potentially eBay to let them know of potential violations.

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