@Willrandship - The used market definitely saves you a boatload, but you're

The used market definitely saves you a boatload, but you're not going to buy used reagents. They're mostly one-time-usage with a fairly short shelf life. Most blood work machines are designed to do things you would do by hand, but unsupervised and/or in bulk. As an example of a simple one you wouldn't buy as an individual, there's erythrocyte sedimentation rate (or ESR) which is literally "how long does it take until your blood goes clear in a test tube". You can do that one by hand if you're willing to stand there watching it, but each test takes ~30 minutes. If you're after blood chemical composition specifically, the cheap machines are just fancy readers for the reagent plates. If you could read them correctly by eye you could skip the machine entirely. (usually it's a matter of how far a chemical indicator has changed color/spectral absorption, how much conductivity has changed, etc, read by a relatively simple electrical/optical system) eg here's a used one for about $2k, guaranteed functional https://www.imedtechcorp.com/product-page/abaxis-piccolo-… but its discs are $150 for a pack of 10 https://medicalproductssupply.com/piccolo-xpress-reagent-… and need to be kept refrigerated. As long as this is "just for you" and not in a medical context, a regular mini fridge set super low would probably work ok, but ideally for long term storage these things would be kept in a precision temperature+humidity controlled refrigerator. For an idea of what you'd be in for, here's its manual. https://www.abaxis.com/sites/default/files/resource-files… (usage instructions start on page 3-4) It *is* easy to use. That's the whole point of the machines, that you can dump 1000 tests on some overworked grad student or pharma tech and still have confidence that the results are right. In this case, the process is just * Draw blood using a lithium-heparin lined vial (for anticoagulation) * Apply a few drops of the drawn blood to the reagent disc in the appropriate place. * Insert the disc into the machine All the smarts of the test are in the different sections of the disc. (the products listed aren't from the company I work for. Their bloodwork stuff is designed for a few hundred samples at once, and runs in the high 5 figure range)