Considerations When Shipping Lab Equipment

Laboratory microscope of healthcare and medicine researcher scientist with lab equipment tools on the table.

Lab equipment can be difficult to ship for a variety of reasons, and standard packaging is unlikely to get most items to their destination safely. It’s much better to use protective shipping cases for lab equipment that are designed with these considerations in mind. Here are some of the qualities your lab equipment shipping cases should account for to make sure everything arrives at the facility intact.

Fragile Materials

Lab equipment is often extremely fragile. Common items like beakers, graduated cylinders, flasks, and thermometers are usually made of glass, so keeping them in place and insulated from external pressures is very important. If lab equipment is jostled during shipment or the case it is shipped in doesn’t have a strong exterior, it may crack or shatter in transit. Use a case with a durable exterior and a carefully crafted interior foam inserts to ensure the safety of the fragile items inside.

Temperature

Sometimes lab equipment is shipped with alcohol or other liquids that will be used for experiments or tests. The kinds of liquids used in a lab environment are very sensitive to temperature, and if they get too hot or cold, they can become unusable. Since the foam in Wilson Case shipping cases helps to regulate temperature, the liquids being shipped in your lab equipment case won’t be at risk. Additionally, our foam inserts can be specifically made with flame-retardant materials to prevent a disastrous incident if your lab equipment were to be exposed to fire.

Complex Parts

Some lab equipment is made up of multiple intricate pieces. When shipping something like a refrigerator, freezer, microscope, or scale, it’s important to remember that if even one specific part becomes loose or broken, the entire item will arrive in need of repairs. It’s a good idea to custom design cases for each specific piece of equipment to keep parts of various sizes and shapes secure instead of trusting a one-size-fits-all solution.

Sanitation

Since lab equipment will frequently be used in sterile environments and/or can contain strong chemicals or other medical substances, it’s important to make sure that the equipment isn’t exposed to contaminants during shipping. Wilson Case designs cases with butterfly twist hatches to shut them tightly enough to prevent dirt and other external debris from getting inside.

Wilson Case has decades of experience with creating protective shipping cases tailor-made for lab equipment. Our custom and stock lab equipment cases can meet any shipping challenge your lab or manufacturing facility may come up against. Shipping sensitive equipment safely isn’t something you want to experiment with—trust our reliable lab equipment solutions instead.