I’m relatively new to Tecan so this may be obvious, please bear with me,
Is there a way to create a worklist in excel for multi-dispensing?
e.g. aspirate 100 uL from position 1 and dispense 50 uL each into positions 5 and 6?
Thanks for your help!
Lots of examples for this hidden on this forum.
Relevant to mixing:
https://forums.pylabrobot.org/t/worklist-commands-mixing/1708/6?u=evwolfson
Modifying CVS for specific tip usage:
https://forums.pylabrobot.org/t/tecan-fluent-worklisting-and-keeping-tips-on/2112?u=evwolfson
General advice:
https://forums.pylabrobot.org/t/tip-efficient-worklists/1127?u=evwolfson
There’s also good notes in the instrument scripting help manual. As for creating macros or scripting to generate these worklists, that one’s likely on you unless you’d want to contact one of the many freelance automators available here to have this done for you.
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Is there a way to create a worklist in excel for multi-dispensing?
e.g. aspirate 100 uL from position 1 and dispense 50 uL each into positions 5 and 6?
There’s certainly a (fairly complicated) way to do that; albeit I’ve only briefly played with it myself
Under worklist file format in the help section, they have a section titled
Reagent Distribution
This is what you’re looking for as far as I understand (copy pasted to make it read-able by our ai / google overlords)
R;AspirateParameters;DispenseParameters;Volume;LiquidClass;NoOfDitiRe-uses;NoOfMultiDisp;Direction[;ExcludeDestWell]*
where:
AspirateParameters = SrcRackLabel;SrcRackID;SrcRackType;SrcPosStart;SrcPosEnd;
and:
DispenseParameters = DestRackLabel;DestRackID;DestRackType;DestPosStart;DestPosEnd;
Important info for figuring out what the heck to put into these fields:
I recall for the “[;ExcludeDestWell]” section, brackets don’t seem to do anything, but I don’t remember if I got that to work or not. If you figure it out, let me know, I haven’t had time to delve into it and it would be great to put on the actual web. I unsurprisingly can’t find anything on the tecan knowledge portal talking about worklist syntax (as of this post).
EDIT: No need for the brackets, weird they include them here
Alternatively, (I think this would work) you could write some python code to essentially give you a worklist like:
A;
D;
D;
F;
A;
D;
D;
F;
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You don’t need the brackets, basically just add all of the wells you want to exclude and it figures out that anything after a certain semi-colon is a well to exclude.
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The final worklist file for multi-dispense could look like…
A;
D;
D;
D;
F;
W;
F is translated to an ‘Empty Tip Contents’ command for a FCA with Disposable tips and can be used to discard the Excess Volume from the liquid class. The W concludes the pipetting sequence for the used tip and performs a DiTi tip exchange if the FCA has Disposable Tips. For FCA with fixed tips W does a Wash instead.
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Not to necro an old thread, but I came across this little help PDF article from Tecan and wanted to post it in text format here since it includes an example along with the T; command explanation. May it please our chatgpt and google overlords 
–Reagent Distribution–
The Reagent Distribution record has the following structure
R; AspirateParameters; DispenseParameters; Volume; LiquidClass:NoOfDiTiReuses; NoOfMultiDisp; Direction [ExcludeDestWell]
AspirateParameters = SrcRackLabel;SrcRackID; SrcRackType; SrcPosStart; SrcPosEnd
Dispense Parameters = DestRackLabel, DestRackID; DestRack Type; DestPosStart; DestPosEnd
For example: Aspirate from a trough of labware type ‘100ml with label "Buffer’ at well 1 (the trough only has one well] and then dispense 150ul into each well within range 1 to 96 of a microplate with labware type ‘96 Well Flat and label ‘DestPlate’ using liquid class Water Free Multi’. DiTi Reuse is 2, Max. Number of Multi-Dispense is 6 and Pipetting Direction 0 (left to right). Exclude well numbers 27, 46, 69 and 83.
R;Buffer;;100ml;1;1;DestPlate;;96 Well Flat;1;96;150;Water Free Multi;2;6;0;27;46;69;83
–Sample Transfer–
The Sample Transfer record has the following structure
T:AspirateParameters, Dispense Parameters, Volume; LiquidClass; NoOfDiTiReuses; NoOfMultiDisp;SampleCount; ReplicationCount; Sample Direction, ReplicateDirection[; Exclude Dest Well]
AspirateParameters = SrcRackLabel; SrcRackID; SrcRackType; SrcPosStart; SrcPosEnd
DispenseParameters = DestRackLabel; DestRackID; DestRack Type; DestPosStart; DestPosEnd
For example: Aspirate from a microplate of labware type '96 Well Round with label ‘Source’ from well range 1 to 24 and Dispense into a microplate of labware type ‘96 Well Flat’ and label ‘DestPlate’ to well range 1 to 72. Volume is 80ul, Liquid Class 'Water Free Multi, DiTi Reuse is 1, Max. Number of Multi-Dispense is 3, Sample Count is empty [empty = use the complete well range without further limiting number of samples; = number of samples), Replicate Number is set to 3, Sample Direction is 1 [0= row; 1=column), Replicate Direction is 0 [0=row; 1-column; 2 plate). No optional wells to exclude in Destination plate.
T;Source;;96 Well Round;1;24;DestPlate;;96 Well Flat;1;72;80;Water Free Multi;1;3;;3;1;0
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Where are the commas and colon’s coming from? Also 2 is plate? I think the Fluent Control manual only lists 0 and 1 for direction
Good catch, some of the pdf was unreadable so I ran it through lens, but it messed up some semicolons. Fixed now
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