Channels moving very slowly

Hamilton (Venus)
1

Hello,

I have a method in which I use a single channel to perform serial dilutions on a STARlet running VENUS 5.

I am using Surface Empty for liquid level detection. I also have a custom error recovery for low-volume tubes: if no liquid is detected, the channel moves to the bottom of the tube.

For most tubes, everything works as expected. However, for one seemingly random tube, the tip moves to the bottom and then remains there for a few minutes without moving. After that, it slowly moves back up, approximately 1 mm every 5 seconds.

I have never seen this behavior before.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

Thanks!

2

Hi @KevinJ ,

What is your swap speed in the liquid class for the transfer? When Bottom recovery is used, it will retract to the entrance of the tube instead of the retract distance. If your swap speed is set to 2 or 5, it will take quite a bit of time to retract to the entrance of a tall tube. I usually default to 10 or 15 for the swap speed to prevent this from happening.

3

Hi Brandon,

Great, thank you. My swap speed was 2. This was the issue. Thanks a lot!

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