Hey all! Saw that it was a little quiet on the Lynx side of the website, but I figured I’d try posting over here anyway.
One of our processes seems like it might be a great fit for a Lynx with a VVP head. I’ve done a little poking around for some customer testimonials, and found a few mixed reviews on here. The main issues that seem to come up are reliability and accuracy. I was wondering if anyone would be willing to share their experience with this instrument. If you’re not comfortable posting here publicly, I’d for sure appreciate a DM, but I think some honest public feedback would be really solid for the community.
Since I haven’t worked with the Lynx directly, I can’t speak to how it works in a production environment, but my contribution to the conversation would be this:
I’ve had several calls with the DD folks to see if Method Manager (and the Lynx software in general) would be compatible with the software ecosystem we’ve built. They’ve been extremely helpful and responsive in letting me demo the software, ask questions, pick apart the code, etc. The ability to load C# directly into the code opens up a ton of doors, and it seems like they have sufficient tools to eventually make a huge chunk of the scripting non-GUI (if that’s your thing).
Method Manager 4 looks like some of the of the least locked-down software out-of-the-box that I’ve come across in the liquid handling space, and I hope more companies choose to go this route.
Would appreciate any hardware (or software!) insights others have for folks like me who are trying to make a decision on one of these instruments.
Method manager is a lot more flexible and programmatically accessible than other GUI applications. The fact that basically all data is in XML is a dream. There’s also PyLynx which was pretty easy to build given the above, it actually lets you use pandas in liquid-handling commands which is pretty rare.
That was the impression I got as well, glad to hear your experience confirms that! Seems like a lot of potential to get creative with the scripting. How’s your experience with the hardware so far? Read elsewhere on the site about what sounded like QC issues, but not sure if that was covid supply-chain weirdness or a genuine concern.
I have spent some time with the Lynx and the VVP head. The original VVP head had some problems with consistently tipping on. The V2 head they are shipping on newer instruments is better. Service from their team is good considering their size, and they will give you the tools and training to do the basics yourself.
In terms of accuracy and precision, the VVP head is a compromise compared to a straight up 96-channel head. It will be a little less precise. As with all lab automation, you should define your acceptance range, get a demo, and perform regular PQs on your instrument to make sure it is matching your spec. If your applications is very low volume or volume sensitive, there are other (usually positive displacement) tools that might work better for you.
I’ve used the Lynx in the past and generally enjoyed it. There’s no one liquid handler that is going to crush it in every aspect, just find the one that’s best for your use case today and for the immediate future. Definitely go into a hands-on demo with a plan & maybe even a specifications doc to really test the machine.
With that said, I think every major liquid handler does offer some capability of interfacing or loading external code in some way. It’s up to engineers to figure it out and then architect around it.
If I were to work with the Lynx today I would create a service and an adapter for the MM4 API. There’s no way I’m locally hosting anything except for what is immediately necessary. If you require the computer, treat it the way you would a PLC and segregate responsibilities so you can scale but also manage increasing complexity. If you can directly load C#, this means you have access to everything .NET offers so you can build some incredibly robust applications. Cheers and happy building!
Hi Luke, if you’re still interested I used to work with Dynamic Devices and can give a testimonial as to the strengths, limitations, and general quality of the instrument.