Through the roof

I am happy to announce, that with the IGERT purchase of a 384 pin tool. The daily throughput of the Biomek on the yeast halo assay is 140,000 compounds!

Now only if we had that many on campus, and a technician to load the robot and score the plates.

Halo Pic

Halo plate for Steve I'm interested in the clear or black spots:

Here's what I can do with your function so far:

How can I align the grid such that the dots are in the center of each box? Thanks so much!

New Video

Hey for anyone interested,

Here's a video of a recent application. I thought it was impressive so I decided to record it:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6272360000675653756

Enjoy, more super Biomek applications to come. Biomek training coming soon, ask David about details.

What NOT to do, Part 1 of a Multi-part series

Tip loader errors
The tip loader is the least reliable location on the deck because it is a moving part, is not screwed down and can be displaced by a stray tip or cable caught underneath. Positions which have conical pins rather than a rim around all corners (tip loader and fan) can be loaded incorrectly with the plate skirt over, rather than inside, one pair of pins (see picture). Therefore it is good practice to use these positions last, use for flat bottomed labware like troughs, which cannot be misplaced, or just always double-check for this error.

In addition always check the position of the notch. Some plates unfortunately have two notches, but most only have one. The notch should be on the upper left corner ALWAYS. Mis-alignment of the notch may cause a robot crash with either the span-8, pin tool or the multichannel head.

Post questions here

Hi,

This is a place to vent and solve Biomek problems. If you want to make a post put a comment here with your email and I'll send you an invite.

Andrew

Drops at top of well after pin tool aspirates liquid

This post was from David Carter
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Pin Tool Position error in 384 well plates and solution
We had a problem with pins scraping on the edge of 384 wells, leaving droplets of liquid on the edge and depositing less than needed.

Discovery: Slowed the robot down to 10% (Instrument/ Hardware Setup/ Pod 1/ Additional settings/ Speed limit 10%)
Tripped the light curtain with the tips down. Shining a flashlight on the wells showed the pins were front and slightly left of center; pressed against the well edge. Several pins did not fully fall into wells during slower descent.

Possible Cause: labware definition was incorrect

Discovery: Manually moved head to determine good central position (Instrument/ Manual Control/ Advanced/ Pod 1/ Moved Right 0.02 then another 0.03. Moved back -0.05 then another -0.05 by typing numbers directly into fields rather than using arrow keys. Remember minus sign)

Solution: Edit labware definition (Project/Labware Type/ double click on in this case AB Gene 1055 384/Wells_1/Well offset changed from x=1.245 to 1.295 y=0.845 to 0.755)
After fix, tips hit center and day's work completed.

Outstanding problem: On 8/24/07 when writing up this post, x and y numbers had defaulted back to 1.245 and 0.845. Don't know how to make changes stick.

Outstanding problem: I think the labware definition offsets refer to distance from top left corner of plate, but we had wedged the plate bottom-right to eliminate the little bit of slop in placement. Should we always push the plates back and left instead?

Possible alternative: Framing error. I did not try re-framing the deck, which is running fine in all other applications.

end of post

Updates

1. I am now able to do a variable liquid level aspirate using a csv input
2. The robot is up and running on an agar dispense function and seed dispense for 96 well plates.

The first is only of interest to me or those who have to dilute a lot of powdered chemicals in a 96-well format. The second point is of interest to all.

In short the Biomek can make 96 well chemical screening assay plates from start to finish. This includes the addition of seeds to a desired final number per well (here 12-20 seeds per well).

The agar dispense was the hardest function to perfect. With a hot water wash of the tips after each agar aliquot the agar retension due to high viscosity (I use 0.67% agar) is overcome.

The 96-well seed dispense is achieved using wide bore tips. The 96-head aspirates from a seed suspension and then aliquots directly into the 96-well assay plate onto the hardened agar.

More interesting things to come:

1. single seed dispense to 96-well plates
2. dual seed dispense to 96-well plates. Side-by-side!
3. Pin tool chemical treatment of agar perfused with yeast.
4. ???

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Technical updates from Phil's latest repair:


96 Multichannel Pod

1. pod was dropping in z axis following light curtain interuption/mag brake not
working/ I found a loose setscrew on the mag brake and resecured - fixed.

2. Pod not parallel to deck/ pod cocked towards rear in y axis a small amount/ I
releveled pod and reframed deck for MC pod

Span8 Pod

1. I realigned probes and reframed deck - much better alignment now. I also
realigned some of the tip detect black boxes which were slightly angled.

2. I did not experience any tip detect problems, but I ran relatively few tips.
Keep an eye on this and let me know if you have any more problems. Make sure
that none of the black shuck tubes or mandrel collars are loose.

3. I did not experience "probe spitting" (large droplets) but did notice "probe
mist".

I noticed what I call "probe misting" where very,very small droplets of system
fluid mist from the end of the mandresl. I believe these are unrelated to the
larger droplets of "probe spitting" generated within the mandrel and system
tubing, but result from droplets of fluid that form on the mandrel tip during
the purge cycle. and attach between the nipple and body of the mandrel.The
mandrels have a very short nipple, and purged fluid frequently bridges. I
believe the misting that I mention above is the result of this residual fluid
misting as the air quickly moves in and out of the nipple during and aspirate or
dispense cycle. See diagram below. You can minize this bridged fluid by cleaning
the ends with alcohol. Otherwise, I can't suggest anything.

Remember to use a slower asp/disp speed (50ul/sec?) to prevent probe spitting.