Sable Systems International serves science professionals with superb instrumentation and software. Founded in 1987, a stable firm with an international presence but quick on our feet and at-home with the latest technology, we specialize in gas analyzers, respirometry, and the measurement and control of temperature, flow rate and humidity. We deliver results to the academic and industrial research communities at very reasonable prices. Our instrumentation is suitable for the most demanding research applications, is backed by a three-year warranty, and boasts lifetime, expert technical support - values offered by no competitors. Sable Systems was founded by scientists, retains strong links to the research community, and is uniquely responsive to the needs of practicing scientists in academia and industry. We are honest, plain-spoken and determined to see you succeed. We speak, understand and respect your language.  We innovate while others imitate. Bookmark our site - it will change your life in beautiful ways.

             Designs and Components - why our instruments thrive

History of Sable Systems

 Way back in 1987, two UCLA Ph.D. graduates founded Sable Systems International in Los Angeles. The company now has 12 employees, a state-of-the-art 6000 sq. ft. facility, and is permanently based in Las Vegas, Nevada. A European subsidiary, Sable Systems Europe GmbH, is now on-line. Our original products were data acquisition and analysis software packages with associated hardware. In the 1990s we responded to the need for reliable research instruments, especially in the field of gas analysis and respirometry. We now concentrate also on general research instrumentation and associated turn-key packages.

Scientists with many scientific papers in leading peer-reviewed journals founded Sable Systems International. The founders of Sable Systems continue to enjoy productive scientific careers and are frequently invited to present papers at international conferences. Sable Systems uniquely understands the needs of research scientists in academia and industry. We speak, understand and respect your language. Our products and systems have backed many breakthroughs in the last two decades, and are regularly cited in Science, Nature, PNAS and other leading journals. 

Like any successful business, we have attracted imitators with questionable ethics. Be assured, we do not engage in deceptive trade practices of any kind. Your science, and your reputation, are safe with us.

Our range of instrumentation includes gas analyzers, pressure and flow transducers, thermocouple thermometers, humidity and dew-point meters and controllers, tachometers, and others - plus complete turn-key systems, and custom instrumentation. With so much expertise in-house, overhead costs are kept low and we produce substantially superior instrumentation recognized around the world for its high quality and intelligent technical support.

In this third millennium, Sable Systems continue to grow and to increase the number of scientific instrumentation, data acquisition and analysis needs that we can satisfy.

If you're an old customer, we hope that you found this outline interesting. If not, we look forward to doing business with you, and guarantee that you'll enjoy the experience.

Corporate Philosophy

Our philosophy is very simple. 

We produce products - instrumentation and software - that enhance the power of people to do what they want to do. And we offer free, expert advice on how best to achieve this aim. Our support and after-sales service are the best in the field, as any of our customers will tell you. We strive to be the kind of company we ourselves would like to deal with, and to produce only products that we ourselves would like to use, to enjoy using, and to learn through experience to rely on. 

We will either produce an instrument that we ourselves would use and cite with pride and confidence, or we won't produce it at all.

We sell our products at the lowest prices that allow an honest profit on our investments in materials, infrastructure and expertise. We charge an honest price and stick to it, rather than inflating our prices and then offering artificial discounts. And we never compromise on quality to lower our prices.

Our Pricing

Our prices are kept as low as possible. Here's how.

1. Our overhead costs are low. We do not pay premium prices for out-of-house expertise because we have the necessary expertise ourselves. We do not rent fancy offices (though we do have an excellent facility), and have no superfluous, Dilbertian management structures.
2. Our quality levels are assured by using top-of-the-line components and a three-stage quality control system. Even though our products carry a three-year guarantee, faults are rare and this further reduces our overhead expenses.

Unlike some of our imitators, we are entirely self-funded. We have received no corporate welfare from universities or regional governments looking to spawn a profitable enterprise. Our success derives from our own hard work and innovation, not subsidies and imitation.

Our products are manufactured to the highest standards, using the best available, quality-inspected, brand-new components. Moreover our products are specifically designed to withstand harsh conditions and to be powered from uncritical DC power, making them equally suitable for use in the laboratory or the field. And incidentally, even if you'll never use our equipment away from your lab, this design philosophy produces the most reliable bench-top equipment possible.

What does this mean in practice? 

 Although our equipment utilizes at least two and sometimes up to five individual power rails internally, almost all of our instruments require only a single, uncritical 10 - 20V DC power source. The necessary low-noise, closely-regulated internal voltages (for example, +15V, -15V, +5V and +2.5V) are then generated internally from the primary power source. This adds to the cost of the instrument. However this is offset by our low overhead costs and ensures independence from grid voltage fluctuations or fading batteries. Our instruments can therefore be used in the laboratory or in the field, interchangeably, anywhere in the world.

 Because our power supplies are low-voltage DC and external, the UL and/or CSA ratings of our instruments are determined by the ratings of their external power supplies. We supply power supplies with the necessary safety specifications, which is then shared by the instrument as a whole. This substantially reduces our turnaround time for new instrument production and lowers our overhead costs.

 All of our instruments are fully protected against reverse polarity power connection and against output short-circuits. They are almost indestructible. Very few other instruments offer this level of fault tolerance.

 We use gold-plated internal connectors exclusively. Moreover our connectors utilize thick gold plating (30 microinches). Thinner plating is cheaper but is sensitive to vibration and allows only a few connection cycles. Tin-plated connectors, in almost exclusive use elsewhere, are far cheaper but are significantly less reliable. They can develop intermittent rectification effects, leading to unpredictable instrument nonlinearity problems. For example, one of our competitors sells gas analyzers with walkman jacks as the electrical connectors. We would never, ever stoop to such a level.

 Our internal connectors use high-insertion-force contacts (in addition to being gold-plated). These contacts are not used in conventional instrumentation. They are standard in military electronics because they greatly improve an instrument's tolerance to vibration and shock.

 Our integrated circuit (IC) sockets are exclusively machined-contact, gold-plated devices that are far more reliable than the tin-plated spring-leaf-contact types in almost universal use elsewhere.

 Where a MILSPEC (Military Specification) component is reliably available, we make a point of incorporating it into our designs because it has passed exhaustive tests for quality and reliability.

 Our resistors are almost exclusively high-precision metal oxide types with very low temperature coefficients and excellent stability. These resistors cost several times more than the carbon-composition or carbon-film types favored by other manufacturers.

 Our printed circuits are designed in-house and produced at a state-of-the-art facility with excellent quality control. Our computer files are directly translated to PC boards using computer-assisted-manufacturing (CAM) techniques without costly and unreliable intermediate steps.

 Our integrated circuits are mostly manufactured by Analog Devices, Linear Technologies, Burr-Brown and Texas Instruments, leading suppliers to the military and aerospace industries. Even where far lower-priced "equivalents" are available from lesser manufacturers, we always use these top-grade ICs where possible.

Throughout the design, manufacture, testing and quality-control process our overall goal is simple. We produce instruments we are proud of. Instruments that we can HONESTLY recommend for the most critical research applications, whether in the lab or in the field.