The way Biomek handles its multichannel tips always bothered me. You have to either use full boxes every time, or shuffle tips around until they’re in reasonable positions - but what if you put a clean tip in a spot that’s touched sample? Here’s a way to deal with that. At the end of the run, discard all the used tips. At the start of the next run, ask the user for an offset for each of your multichannel tip boxes (or use the same offset for all boxes). Then you can use that offset to automatically clear the tips from the boxes within the software, and when you pick up tips, you can used Advanced Load and pick up at column (13-Offset-Columns).
Here’s a friendly little utility that you can load into a script step. Open the secret menu with Ctrl-Shift-u and put this in the HTML section:
<HTML>
<style type="text/css">
body {
background-color: #f2f2f2;
margin: 0;
font-family: 'Segoe UI', Tahoma, Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif;
}
h1 {
margin-bottom: 4px;
padding: 4px;
font-size: 1.8em;
border-bottom: 2px solid #ed1c24;
}
.shortTextBox {
width: 50px;
text-align: center;
}
.content {
margin-left: 20px;
margin-right: 20px;
margin-bottom: 20px;
clear: both;
}
</style>
<body class="content">
<h1>Set tip box as partially used for improved MC handling</h1>
<br><br>
<b>Position: <input type="text" BFXName="Position"></b>
<br><br>
<b>Empty columns on the right: <input type="text" width="20" bfxName="ColsUsed"></b>
<br><br>
<b>Locates the labware on the deck by labware name and sets the "volume" dataset to 0 for the indicated number of columns.
</body>
</HTML>
And this in the code section:
'' This function locates the labware on the deck. If labware is not present
'' due to the labware not being present on conditional statement or lost, Nothing is returned
'' Parameters:
'' LabwareName: name of the labware to find
function FindLabwareByName(LabwareName)
dim result, LabwarePosName, pos, lw
set result = Nothing
LabwarePosName = Pipettor.Deck.FindLabwarePosition(LabwareName)
if Positions.VariantDictionary.IsBound(LabwarePosName) then
set pos = Positions(LabwarePosName)
If pos.StackDepth > 1 then
for each lw in pos.Stack
if (lw.Properties.VariantDictionary.IsBound("Name")) then
if (lw.Properties.Name = LabwareName) then
set result = lw
end if
end if
next
end if
if result is Nothing then
if not IsNull(pos.Labware) and pos.Labware.Properties.VariantDictionary.IsBound("Name") then
if (pos.Labware.Properties.Name = LabwareName) then
set result = pos.Labware
end if
end if
end if
end if
if result is Nothing then
Err.Raise vbObjectError+1, "Set used tip box columns", "Labware """ & LabwareName &""" Not Found. Check Spelling of Labware Name. If Labware Name is Correct, Check GLS USE Column To Make Sure Labware Is On Deck."
else
set FindLabwareByName = result
end if
end function
function ColumnMajorToRowMajor (wellNum, Row, Col)
dim tmpcols, tmprow
tmpcols = ((wellNum-1) \ Row)+ 1
tmprow = (wellNum-1) mod Row + 1
ColumnMajorToRowMajor = tmpcols + ((tmprow-1) * Col)
end function
Sub SetWellVolume (lw, well, volume)
dim pod1
lw.AmountsKnown = true
lw.Known = True
lw.Nominal = False
lw.Properties.SenseEveryTime = False
lw.SetWellAmount volume, well, pod1
lw.ConfigureSeekStates array(well), 3
end Sub
set eng = Createobject("Biomek5.EngineObject")
pos = eng.EvaluateExpression (StepDictionary.Position)
set LabwarePos = FindLabwareByName(pos)
cols = eng.EvaluateExpression (StepDictionary.ColsUsed)
wellCount = LabwarePos.Class.WellsY*LabwarePos.Class.WellsX
tipsUsed = LabwarePos.Class.WellsY*(LabwarePos.Class.WellsX - cols) + 1
for l = tipsUsed to wellCount
well = ColumnMajorToRowMajor(l, LabwarePos.Class.WellsY, LabwarePos.Class.WellsX)
SetWellVolume LabwarePos, well, 0
next
StepDictionary.Description = "Set "& pos & "'s tip status to " & ColsUsed & " empty columns on the right side."
This requires a bit of user confidence, of course. And the code is modified from a Beckman utility so it’s probably a little crufty.
