Hi there,
I’m planning to buy a Desealer and have only found the Xpeel from Brooks / Azenta. I had a device at my lab for testing and I think the machine is quite nice, the only thing I do not like is that I can only buy the tape from Azenta. Are there any competitors for this?
Happy to hear your opinion,
best
Dominik
It’s a pretty niche market item. I buy the Azenta tape from Fisher if that makes any difference. I actually couldn’t find the part on Azenta’s website to buy directly from them but didn’t look real hard because buying from Fisher is easier for me anyways.
As for alternate consumables, I’m not aware of any, but am curious if anyone else knows of one.
How do you like the machine so far? What about maintenance and general sturdiness?
It has impressed me greatly. I thought it would be the weak point in our process/workcell and it very reliably deseals plates. We only once had a problem with it and it was because we loaded the tape incorrectly. Once we fixed that it went back to workhorse status.
For info, we use a PlateLoc sealer with the standard clear, pealable seals. We seal our plates around 165C for ~1.5s and then those will go for a full round of 35 cycles of PCR then get desealed. The seals are on the plates pretty good before they get desealed. The heated lid on the ODTCs add a little more sealing to the plate so I actually dialed back from a 2s seal on the PlateLoc to that 1.5s. We only deseal one plate type (Azenta Framestar PCR plates).
The XPeel is the only “desealer” that I am aware of. I have never found an alternative for the XTape. The width is not a common size, so I have never found any ultra-sticky packing tape that is the right size. If you have a service contract, they might not cover certain repairs if you are not using the right consumables.
I have never needed anything but PM service on mine. One sat dormant for about 5 years before I started using it regularly and it had no issues. They are really robust. I just wish they were a bit smaller.
Brooks spent a lot of cycles figuring out the perfect glue for those rolls. I have seen many Xpeels, no meaningful complaints about them from anyone.
I know of someone who is looking to build an alternative.
We’ll see.
Can you share any details about the progress they’ve made? An alternative peeler has been my #1 request to OEMs for years now; very excited about the potential for another option.
Hello can you please contact me I am building a prototype right now and need LOI here is my email: ainur@aibiocheck.com or ainurochka2802@gmail.com
If you’re based in Europe you can also use the HJ Peeler: HJ@Peeler (hj-bioanalytik.de). They’re built like a tank. They’re not the prettiest to look at but do work.