Hi,
I was wondering what your regular maintenance for the Plateloc looks like if there is any?
Also, how often do you need to change the cutting blade and do you do this yourself or have some FSE come on-site for it?
Do you see differences in changing the blades when using different foil types (mainly the freezer (white) or RT (silver) DMSO foil).
Do you guys work with Agilent, DCMbio or others for this? Am I missing someone who is doing service?
N.
I have a bunch of Agilent stuff (PlateLocs, Bravos, BenchCel, TapeStation) and the quote for service coverage from Agilent was ridiculous. I probably would have paid it (not my money, right?) except the service engineers that kept coming out to do PMs or work on the instruments were brand new and had never seen that particular instrument before. These are the bread-and-butter instruments that Agilent sells, and your engineer is training on them at a customer site?
We’ve switched everything over to DCM Bioservices. I’ve known Dave for a long time and he’s been working on Agilent equipment for over a decade so knows what he’s doing. He can also cover non-Agilent equipment as well, so bonus points for that. Agilent is never going to cover to your old Beckman FX.
I asked Dave about the cutter blade and he said they almost never need to be changed, it’s a scissor action cutter so it realistically doesn’t get dull. It will occassionally need to be adjusted, but shouldn’t need to be changed.
Other maintenance on the PlateLocs is mostly just making sure the hot plate stays clean, and getting it clean if it ever gets melted plate or seal on it.
Been in a lab with dozens of platelocs for over a decade now. Most of that time was on the lab instrument/device service team. I’ve taken apart and repaired many many many platelocs.
As stated above, 80% of it, is just keeping the hot plates clean. We run millions of datapoints a year with thousands of plates, so we see more wear and tear. I’ve had to change cutter blades, and do cutter alignments. Change out solenoids, fix air leaks, make adjustments to timings/tunings, ect. But that stuff is a little more uncommon.
I’d say the best thing you can possibly do, is to not let the end of a roll of seal suck a piece of tape into the plateloc. That will stick to the transfer plate, and you will have to disassemble the whole thing and clean the transfer plate to get it work again. Ask me how I know.
What’s the best way to clean the hot plate? We have one where the sealed plate sticks to the hot plate, then falls into the interior of the Plateloc when the stage moves out. I tried wiping it with IPA, it didn’t seem to help.
I think one needs to verify that the vacuum holes are free of dirt. Also, the plate must not have scratches and such. If it is all clean and still doesn’t work it might be necessary to change the hotplate. The hotplate to some extend is a consumable as well.
The $500 cleaning kit from Agilent comes with a wire brush and a normal kitchen dish scrubbing sponge. It also comes with a pick that is the proper size to pick out the vacuum holes on the edge of the hot plate, but I’ve never had to use it.
I have better luck cleaning with the hot plate still hot, but for liability reasons Agilent states to make sure it is cool. When it’s hot I lightly brush the plate with the wire brush to get any stuck plastic off the plate and then finish with the scrubbing sponge with a more aggressive scrub. At this point you could let the plate cool and also use alcohol to do an additional cleaning to remove anything that’s sticky (like that tape that they put at the end of the roll). Give it a very light blow with compressed air to clean out all the stuff you just scrubbed off the plate and you should be good.
If plates are still sticking to the hot plate you still have some plastic/gunk on the hot plate, so go at it again a little more aggressively.
Thanks a lot all - I’ll try all of those things.