10X Chromium Controller Component Cost Is Likely <$5000

There’s been recent talk of instrument-less single cell analysis platforms. One of the potential advantages here is you no longer need to buy an instrument (like the 10X Chromium controller) to perform single cell experiments.

The original Chromium controller cost $35000¹ and while this isn’t a hideously expensive purchase for many labs, it’s likely one that needs to be budgeted for. However I’ve always assumed that the instrument costs far less than this to make.

One appeared on eBay relatively cheaply and I thought I’d check it out! Paid subscribers can see a more complete BOM below but suffice it to say there’s nothing too expensive in here. Popping the top off you can immediately see two of the more expensive components: Thomas diaphragm pumps. These range from $200 to $400:

The fanciest component in the instrument is the manifold that interfaces with the GEM Chips:

It’s always difficult to estimate pricing for custom components like these. So here I decided to model a similar part and cost it out, which came to a quite reasonable $230:

In my estimate I push this to $300 to account for a few features not included in my model (the manifold has some interesting aspects and if there’s interest there’ll be a follow up post).

A valve and measurement PCB is coupled to manifold. This board monitors and directs pressure to the chip. Some of these sensors are relatively fancy but even a fancy pressure sensor costs less than $100:

Elsewhere everything else uses common commodity electronics (STM32 microcontrollers etc.) which no large expensive items. I suspect most of the cost to 10X would be associated with building relatively small numbers of these instruments.

However I don’t imagine this labor cost is anywhere close to the $35000 price tag. With further cost optimization a comparable instrument could likely be produced for far less than $5000.

Full notes and a photo dump after the break! If you have thoughts or questions head over to the Discord. I will likely write up a few more posts on 10X so consider subscribing for those!