Being a manufacturer and supplier of cuvettes for over 40 years, NSG Precision Cells has vast experience in producing the highest quality cuvettes for the best prices in the market. Every cuvette that NSG makes is inspected by their ISO certified inspection team that go over every micron of the cell. In other words, NSG Precision Cells knows which products are good and which products are better off in the garbage can. Let's first look at the popular NSG cuvettes which are known for their outstanding quality.
The NSG factory located in Sakata, Japan has been producing cuvettes since the late 70s. Their techniques have been fined tuned over the past 40 years, making them one of the best quartz glass cuvette manufacturers in the industry. NSG uses top of the line polishing and lapping machinery to finely polish the quartz glass plates. After the plates have been polished, they are taken over to the assembly department to be fused together.
The NSG technicians assemble all the cuvettes by hand using special jigs and tools to hold the quartz plates in place during fire fusing. Finally, after fusing, the cuvettes are annealed to remove any stress that was caused during the fire fusing.
The last part of the process involves the transfer of the cuvettes to the Precision Cells inspection department, which is located in a class 100 (ISO 5) clean room. There, the cells are scrupulously tested for any defects; this includes dirt, scratches, bubbles, distortion, and other types of imperfections. No cell leaves the factory until this inspection has taken place.
The difference between Chinese and Japanese cuvettes is like night and day. After visiting a few plants in China to view their manufacturing processes, the results were clear. So brace yourself and let's take a look at what goes on in those Chinese factories.
First off, most factories in China are not "factories" at all. They are mom and pop shops that do one portion of the manufacturing process and sell their goods to people who are able to assemble them into the final products.
But there are a few true Chinese cuvette factories who do all of their manufacturing in house with no outsourcing. Being at these factories was like being in a third world country. The factories were dirty, poorly lit and lacked some of the most basic necessities. The plant did not have a bathroom on-site, it was located in a far off building that barely had running water.
The factories tools that are being used were so old and decrepit that better tools can be found at a garage sale. Also, the methods used by these Chinese factories were stolen from either the Japanese or British. They were not ashamed of stealing other peoples' technology, in fact, they were quite proud of this. Even though they have some sort of basic technology, they are lacking many details that are evident in the products they produce.
As far as inspecting the final products, the Chinese factories were not equipped with any type of inspection department. Quality control was something that was not practiced at these plants. They had no microscopes, calipers, profile viewers or spectrophotometers to test the products they make.
What do customers get when they open a box of Chinese cuvettes? Cuvettes that are out of specification because they were not measured for accuracy due to the fact that no Chinese factory has any type of electronic measuring equipment or any inspection system in place. Cuvettes with major defects that are so obvious that one would be ashamed to put these things in their $ 10,000 spectrophotometer because they will not work properly. Cuvettes that are dirty, because the Chinese could care less if they sold a product that had contaminates in it. Cuvettes made with the lowest quality glass and quartz; don't expect UV cuvettes to actually work in the UV range.
So why do scientists and researchers buy these sub-standard cuvettes? Luckily, most do not. They go to vendors such as NSG Precision Cells because they know that the products they supply are of superior quality, and are backed by a guaranteed which no Chinese suppliers will offer.
So are Chinese cuvette comparable to Japanese cuvettes? Absolutely not. Chinese manufacturers could care less about their customers and the products they produce. They make cheap products that lure researchers in by making them think, "Hmm, I can buy two of these Chinese cuvettes for the price of one NSG cuvette..." What happens to this type of researcher? They go to NSG after the two cuvettes they purchased fails to function and cannot get their money back.
In today's economy, corners have to be cut occasionally. But when you're spending $ 400 on a sample and spend $ 30 on a cuvette that doesn't even work, the results just don't add up. To help ease the stress of these economic times, NSG Precision Cells has monthly sales on popular items to help customers get more for less.
When looking for laboratory equipment for serious data analysis, steer clear of the Chinese companies who provide cheap low quality goods with false promises. By using cuvettes from reputable companies such as NSG, researchers and scientists can spend more time running their experiments than on just getting the cuvette to work.
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