How to configure Liconic plate transfer nests

[ben]

Does anyone know what firmware commands or .exe I can use to upgrade my static plate transfer nest to a linear nest with motor?

My specific Liconic is an STR240 from 2016, which I acquired used. Liconic does not respond to any emails from customers with used equipment, so I am hoping this information can be useful to other users with second-hand Liconic instruments.

Liconic firmware is nicely documented and there are several .exe’s available for public download, but none of the documentation includes configuration commands to stop my STR240 from erroring on successful transfer to this station:

I pulled this linear transfer station from an STX44, where it was working without error.

Any ideas on how to get my STR240 configured for this X-fer nest?

[ben]

The plan is to use this linear plate nest to shuttle the 80mm between these two green zones accessible to the STR240 plate handler and STAR iSWAP:

[thetoly]

If you can’t get support from Liconic themselves, I would recommend reaching out to Scipods as they service and refurbish Liconic incubators (amongst other things).

[ben]

It is possible for users to configure this directly on Cytomats using .exe service software provided by freely Thermo, so i’m hoping Liconics are also user serviceable.

Instruments that aren’t user-serviceable hurt startup timelines because a 2-minute software fix can take weeks to discover

[UCantBcereus]

Depending on the age of the Cytomat you have, you will struggle to service them yourselves. You can certainly use their service software to do some things, but if you actually have a hardware issue, ThermoFisher will not sell you parts for you to fix on your own for at least Cytomats purchased after ~2021, and all 3rd party service companies I talked to (such as Scipods) could not service them because of this.This means you are locked into having ThermoFisher come out for repairs, and they were often not timely.

You can see the Topic I posted about this a few years ago.

Not to suggest that Liconics are perfect, but wanted to provide context for people considering using newer Cytomats.

[Stefan]

We need a new automated incubator competitor fr

[ben]

It’s a shame because these parts are so simple. If I am enabled to configure my instrument, I can also just build the plate nest from scratch.

[Stefan]

Any chance you could figure out what the “plate on” signal is and emulate it? I am going off my knowledge of the cytomat transfer station which works similarly I think but I’d imagine theres just a single high/low bit that it pulls from a data cable. Would probably be pretty hard though

[kskogsholm]

I recently wrote an python interface for two liconic STX incubators, but I didn’t get to the level of sending RS232 commands.

Both of my incubators have a linear transfer station, as in your picture. I noticed that there are some associated lines in the “device” config file:

...
<ParameterGroup>
  <Name>Sensors</Name>
  <Parameter>
    <Name>ShovelPlateSensor</Name>
    <Value>true</Value>
  </Parameter>

  <Parameter>
    <Name>PlatePresenceSensor</Name>
    <Value>true</Value>
  </Parameter>

  <Parameter>
    <Name>1TransferStationPlateSensor</Name>
    <Value>true</Value>
  </Parameter>

  <Parameter>
    <Name>2TransferStationPlateSensor</Name>
    <Value>true</Value>
  </Parameter>

</ParameterGroup>
...

Maybe this is what you’re missing?

[ben]

From what I have discovered in the documentation, upgrading from a passive transfer station to an active motorized slide station requires editing the firmware.

I am able to successfully upload the .cod firmware from the keyence PLC to my PC, but using Liconic software, I cannot download to PLC or edit the firmware without bricking my PLC.

Does anyone know how to edit Liconic STR240 .cod firmware and re-upload without bricking the PLC? Or have access to their own STR240 or STR-series firmware updates?

From reading the Liconic FAQs, it should be possible to convert my active transfer station from slave mode to the PLC to being actively controlled by the user. I just haven’t been able to download edited .cod to the PLC without bricking it.

Very upset at Liconic for ghosting system integrators who don’t purchase new equipment. Their salespeople need to grow up and offer FAQ level support to all users

[ben]

Activating the proximal plate position sensor 2 (DM101) with a metal object enables the control flow of the plate handler to proceed with a plate pickup on the transferstation.

RD DM101 returns 1 when this sensor is activated. pin 101 is the plate position sensor 2 proximal to the STR240 gate.
RD 3210 returns 1 after 30 initialization, indicating the PLC detects an ‘active’ transfer station

The motor remains continuously pushing the plate holder in the distal direction. Plate position sensor 1 (DM100) is detecting the transferstation as the motor pushes to this endstop

A properly configured slide station would reverse direction and trigger the proximal handler sensor (DM101) itself. This is the only change required for proper operation in slave mode, where the slide handler is controlled by the PLC itself.

FAQ#281 indicates there exist alternative .cod firmware files or a way to reconfigure your existing uploaded .cod firmware for all active transfer station changes. Presumably this is where you could disable slave mode on the active transfer station and controlling it directly.

There does exist ProdUtil.exe “Production Utility” in Liconic downloads that enable me to set these configs given my instrument’s uploaded .cod firmware file. However the only configuration options are for the older STX40 and STX200, and none exactly matching my STR240. When I use ProdUtil.exe to edit my .cod, STX200 reveals “slide station” option. Downloading the edited firmware to my instrument, the PLC bricks 100% of the time, and I need to factory reset before downloading the unedited .cod backup back to the STR240

This makes me want to reverse engineer the Keyence KV-40DT .cod compiled binary back to the ladder logic and edit it there, so I can ensure I keep all the relevant STR240 bits.

There does exist some KV plc ladder logic editor .exes that can only run on a windows XP virtual machine, and I think this is the next place I will look to properly configure my STR240 170mm slide station with plate sensors. There is also a liconic firmware util that also only runs on windows xp vm, presumably based on this KV plc util, which may unlock what I need