We couldn't find a programmable temperature controller for a microscope that met our requirements so I ended up building it from scratch. It took me a month and

We couldn't find a programmable temperature controller for a microscope that met our requirements so I ended up building it from scratch. It took me a month and I didn't know electronics when I started, but now we can do our experiments, and I have a skill that will benefit me and my employers for the rest of my career. I'd argue that that's a great use of a PhD, as long as it's not the only thing I'm doing. Additionally, in my lab and many others, there simply wasn't any tool we could use to answer all the questions we have, so we had to invent them. That said, these are much more bespoke systems, but as we push the envelope of what we need to observe, instrument making and method development are only going to be more critical. The inflation in the scientific equipment market is also ludicrous. Since I've been in grad school some of the things I have to buy have doubled in price. And it really is pathetic when it's something like a syringe pump - I mean you're rotating a screw with an electric motor to push a piece of plastic. I get that it's a small market and the vendor has to make a living, but this isn't the best way for a civilization to direct its resources.