Is there a robot arm that can integrate the Hamilton/Tecan system with a Q5 qPCR?
Do you have a scheduling software in mind? If it’s Genera, Overlord I’d go for a KX-2. If it’s Biosero or High Res no real options so you’ll have to go PF400. If it is Momentum by Thermo you can use their arm. I know Biosero works well with Hamilton though, so I’d reach out to get a quote for that first. On a budget go KX-2 and (Genera or Overlord)
If it’s an in-house build the options there are lots of options. uFactory, Mecademic, or EVS. (Probably many more I don’t know about)
PF400: Cost = X
Pros: Gold standard of biotech lab auto. Lots of community support. Reliable embedded web server you can connect to from a web browser to always get into the nitty gritty.
Cons: Pretty archaic interface. 270 access. Configure it with Filezilla…um what. Cellario and GBG take care of most of the clunky stuff thru their software so wouldn’t need to worry though if you had them.
KX-2: Cost = X/2
Pros: No singularities and full 360 contínuos motion. Long reach, lots of elbows scrunch up for a tight safe travel too.
Cons: Long reach causes weird behavior with all the elbows whippin around.
UFactory or EVS: Cost =X/5
Pros: Very modern Python programming interfaces. Teach path by moving it around and it generates the code to rapidly prototype. Supports ROS for IoT integrations of sensor or other controllers.
Cons: Needs custom biogripper attachment. Not much support. If you used them Support would probably say “you’re doing what with it?”
If you don’t need scheduling though and just want to do one process from the Hamilton deck to a q5 as fast as possible. In house wouldn’t be awful. You just need to pepper in ‘Run Shell’ commands to kick off in-house movement command scripts, or Hamilton could maybe provide a library for more granularity. I don’t think TECAN would have a fast turn around on this, but I guess you can control a TECAN with Python so could maybe do it all in a notebook. You still need to get ahold of a driver for the q5 to make it close, read, etc. You can contact the vendor or sometimes they actually have the remote commands listed in their documentation.
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Will you also need to seal the plate prior to qPCR? How about centrifuge as well? My previous experience is that you can usually get by without spinning the plates prior to qPCR, but you will definitely need to seal the plates.
Pretty easy to integrate something like a PlateLoc if you’re already planning to have a robot arm, but does add a bit of space/complexity.
Any kninds of robot can integrate in lab automation, like industry robot, collaborative robot, SCARA robot. But what you need is software (like driver and scheduler) and engineer (do the hardware and integration).
From simulation as shown below, you can see robot with integration.
Are we talking about a QuantStudio 5 or is this another product?
If by Q5 you do mean QS5, I have a Python library for controlling them. They also have a self-documenting SCPI-like interface on port 7000 (older firmware) in plain text and port 7443 on newer firmwares (SSL, but SSLv3, unfortunately, so deprecated for security reasons in many cases).