I have a cell culture protocol that reuses tips for PBS dispensing from a reservoir well (tips never touch samples) on an Opentrons Flex and I might be moving to a facility with a Biomek i5 (span 8 pipettes) instead. But I just heard that there is no tip return function for the Span 8, this would drastically increase my tip usage! Is there no workaround or way to return tips to the tip rack??
For context, I would be using 1 column of 8 tips with tip return versus 24 columns of 192 tips (two tip boxes) if there was no tip return! Crazy…
However, there is this video floating around from way back when. It definitely CAN be done, but for whatever reason, Beckman never implemented it to my knowledge.
I think the workaround is just to use the 96MC. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that the 96 head is far superior to the 8-span, but either way that doesn’t help much if you’re inheriting existing machines.
@evwolfson is correct, there is no way to return S8 tips to the box on the standard instrument. That functionality is only available on the MC head and the i3 pipetting head.
However, if you are just dispensing into multiple columns, you could just not eject the tips between transfers. Keep them loaded and aspirate again. Would that work?
Another option is the Rapid Shuck device for the Span-8. There is a reasonable cost associated with it however; so it does depend on how many tips you would use as to whether it is financially viable.
@hkjawn We are looking into integrating this ability onto the iSeries platform. We have this available for the FX(p)/NX(p) right now. Hopefully, we will have something soon. Let me know if you are interested?
