Automated Freezer Reviews

Does anyone have a favorite automated freezer (-20)? I’ve used the Verso Q50 before, and found it pretty unreliable for rack re-arraying, as tubes would frequently get stuck in it and we would need to call and wait for service to get in and fix. If anyone has any better experiences or has an automated freezer that they’d recommend, I’m all ears.

What will you be storing? Tubes (like Matrix tubes) or plates? Or something else?

Hopping on this thread because I am also looking for a freezer. The Verso Q we were going to integrate may have fallen through. I wasn’t aware of the labware limitations with the Verso Q :frowning:

We want to store both tubes and plates.

Tubes in racks, so yes Matrix, FluidX, etc. tubes. Ideally would like to have flexibility with the brand of tube as we’re not yet locked into one particular type yet.

I think it’s love/hate, but I love the STP Labtech comPOUND stores. Before using one I had heard a lot of bad things about them, but I think part of that is untrained/insufficiently trained users. If you give it dry, unlabeled tubes it is a rock solid tube store. You can mix and match tube sizes and brands in the same store (to a degree). It’s super quick, and it can deliver your tubes remotely if that’s something that’s needed. Like maybe you don’t have space in your ideal lab for a tube store, you can put it a couple labs over and have it shoot the tubes to an arraying module in your other lab. To that end you can combine multiple stores that all feed one arraying module to expand capacity.

Standard capacity is 100k full height tubes or twice as many 500uL tubes. It’s the only store that comes to mind that doesn’t have to pick a rack prior to picking a tube. So for truly random access its speed can’t be beat.

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