The long tail that pays the bills
Not every lab sale is one of our flagship instruments. Here is the smaller, faster-moving end of the same niche.
Strommen Systems · Philadelphia, PA
Notes from
the bench
We buy government-surplus and corporate-liquidation lots, test and repair what's worth saving, and sell it direct. This is where we show the work: what came in, what we fixed, what's for sale, and what we learned doing it.
What an analytical balance actually does
A semi-micro analytical balance measures mass down to a fraction of a milligram. Here is what that actually requires.
A drive lock a re-image could not clear
A cold boot triggered an ATA drive lock after a BIOS flash. A plain re-image would not touch it. Here is what did.
Six steel tables and a shop that finally looks like one
We bought a lot of mid-century drafting tables to outfit our own workspace. Here is where that project actually stands.
Where the logo came from
The mark on the site came from somewhere specific, and the old favicon had been wrong for months now.
The app that runs our business, and how we would build yours
One app takes our surplus lots from auction to shipped sale, with AI doing the research. Here is how it works, and what it looks like for a trade business.
The upgrade that would have cost us money
We ran the numbers on a repair that would have raised a price. The math said no, so we disclosed the flaw instead.
Nine calipers for a dollar forty-five
Not everything that pays the bills looks impressive: new old stock calipers that cost about sixteen cents a unit.
Every listing gets a bench report now
A listing with no description tells a buyer nothing. We are writing up what was actually tested on every unit.
Thirty-six access points, still running vendor firmware
A lot of enterprise WiFi access points arrived locked to vendor firmware. One is proven converted. The other thirty-five are still ahead of us.
Why we replace the drive even when it boots fine
Tested and boots fine is not the same as will not fail in six months. A real failure mode buyers rarely hear about.
We had seventy-five items filed under Other
An RF signal generator and a box of pipettes were both filed under Other. Here is why cataloging breaks down.
What actually breaks inside a Wheelwriter
Two typewriters off the same lot, the same service, and a failure mode most repair guides skip entirely.
Every eBay-listed buy button now goes to eBay
Every storefront listing cross-listed on eBay now routes purchases to eBay. The real reason is buyer protection, not fee avoidance.
Repair buys speed. Testing buys margin.
Our own repair-ticket data: tested units sell in about half the time of untested ones, and at a far higher margin.
We are becoming a lab equipment business
We started out buying computers. The bench is now full of chromatography, ultrasonics, and an atomic force microscope. Here is why that happened.
What to do with 104 decommissioned cellular routers
An agency retired its fleet of CradlePoint LTE gateways. We bought the lot. Here is the arithmetic on a bulk buy nobody else wanted.
Syringe, peristaltic, vacuum: which lab pump do you need?
Four kinds of lab pump, four completely different jobs. Buying the wrong one is the most common mistake we see in used lab equipment.
The HP 3458A is still the best multimeter ever built
Designed in 1989, still the reference standard in metrology labs, still not really beaten. One came through our bench. Here is why it matters.
For sale: Misonix Sonicator 3000, and what is missing from it
A 550W ultrasonic processor generator that powers on and runs its menu. It has no converter and no horn, and the listing says so in the title.
What an HPLC actually does, and why labs have so many
HPLC is how a lab finds out what is in a liquid and how much. It is the workhorse of analytical chemistry, which is why used modules are everywhere.
The pump the seller said was broken
A lot was discounted because a pump "does not stay powered on." We could not reproduce the fault. Here is why that happens more often than you think.
For sale: Stable Micro Systems TA-XT plus Texture Analyser
A complete TA-XT plus that powers on, from 2008. The instrument that decides whether your biscuit snaps and your gel holds. Here is what it is.
How to buy a used HPLC module without getting burned
Agilent 1100 and 1200 modules are the most available used lab instruments on earth. Here is what actually determines whether one is worth buying.
We moved into a space in Frankford
Strommen Systems now has a workshop in Frankford, Philadelphia. It is a working space, not a storefront, and here is what it changes for buyers.
What "refurbished" should mean and usually does not
Most refurbished PCs are sold half finished: wiped, reinstalled, and shipped. Here is the standard we hold ours to, and why Secure Boot is the tell.
What kills a surplus lot before you even bid
Most surplus lots that look like bargains are traps. Here are the failure modes we have learned to spot from the listing photos alone.
For sale: Park Systems XE7 AFM, complete with software
A complete Park XE7 atomic force microscope with controller, vibration enclosure, the full Park software suite, and transferable registered ownership.
The niches we buy into, and the ones we leave alone
We do not buy everything that is cheap. We buy in four specific niches where knowledge is worth more than capital. Here is the map and the reasoning.
The software gate, and why used lab instruments sell for half
The biggest discount in the used lab equipment market is not condition. It is software you cannot get. Here is how we closed that gap on a Park XE7.
What an atomic force microscope actually does
An AFM does not use light. It feels the surface with a needle a few atoms wide. Here is how it works, what it is used for, and who buys one.
We bought an atomic force microscope at a government auction
A Park Systems XE7 AFM came up on GovDeals listed as generic lab equipment. Here is why we bid on an instrument that cost more new than most cars.
How we decide what to bid on
Surplus auctions move faster than any person can read them. Here is how we filter thousands of lots down to the few worth bidding on, and where we stop.
What we are building at Strommen Systems
We buy government surplus and corporate liquidation lots, test and repair what is worth saving, and sell it direct. Here is the thesis behind the business.