>> I should maybe point out that these mass spectrometers retail for
>> approximately £250,000 *each*. (I.e., this machine is worth more than my
>> _house_.)
> 
> Eh, one of the jigging setups I worked on cost about that much, but it's 
> huge, contains a lot of steel, and about 60 or so motors, drives and 
> associated hardware (relays, transformers, power supplies, pneumatic 
> valves, etc...)

The mass spectrometer requires 6 people to lift safely, so I guess 
there's a lot of metal in it. It also contains vacuum pumps, which take 
about 20 minutes to spin up / spin down. (And much, much longer than 
that to actually pump down to a vacuum.) And it generates a couple of 
kilovolts (but bugger all current) to ionise the sample...

...still not sure exactly why it's so expensive though. Probably design 
time / production volume.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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