Does anyone have experience with one of these robotic arms in their laboratory?
What is your feedback? Is it safe and “clean” enough to be used in a lab environment?
Is the arm always precise and reliable handle material or plates?
I appreciate any comment 
I can only comment on the Precise robots but they are everywhere in labs. Definitely safe and actually much cleaner than having humans move plates around. There’s probably nothing dirtier in a lab than us humans constantly breathing out bacteria and water droplets, not to mention shedding hair and skin cells.
Anybody care to take some guesses on how many PF robots are out there moving microtiter plates around? 5,000? 10,000? 20,000?
Would be interested to understand the cost aspect. Seems like the UFactory is the cheapest option, but the “compliant placement” on the Precise looks amazing.
Hi,
The robot arm is only one part of a platform’s ecosystem, and the final determination as to whether a particular arm is appropriate to the task will depend on many factors beyond the actual arm itself. e.g. is the labware being used is robot “friendly”, is the platform table/bench stable, are the instruments compatible for automation etc
Currently own 3xPF400 robots (1 is on a 2m rail) across two different automation platforms, and find them to be very reliable plate handing arms . Maintenance is simple and can be done by anyone with a little training and our only unintended downtime was due to a gripper controller board failure - to resolve, I sought support directly from the Precise Team, which was excellent.
Our arms have always been supplied with a platform by our 3rd party integrator, so I can’t comment on programming that; but once taught, I have found them to be super reliable in their plate handling.
Looking to invest into another platform, and would happily order another PF400 arm.
I have worked with Staubli, Denso, and Precise robots. We have looked at universal robots too, but i haven’t much experience with them just yet. the Precise robots offer a good price savings. they are touch safe, and reliable. Denso are hard to teach, ( teach pendant ), but very reliable, and fast. the Staubli and Denso need guarding. The precise is touch safe, guarding would be dependent on your safety team. all are clean . remember, robots are used in semiconductor manufacturing. these rooms are ultra clean. BLS2 is nothing to those clean rooms. Yes, these arms are always precise and reliable for handling plates, even automation reservoirs. ( you can adjust robot speed when needed to prevent spilling ). Hope this helps out.
I’d be very curious to hear from any other uFactory users. We have Precise and UR’s around here and they’re great, but I would like to hear if folks have had good or bad experiences w/ uFactory. Please direct message me if you don’t want to make it public.
Hey, we have two PF, one UR and one ufactory arm in our lab (university). For equal price, I would recommend the PF:
Very reliable, good-to-work-with automation API, competent and responsive Service. The only downside was the time (1-2 month) it took to order/receive a replacement board (to Sweden) … and the fact that we had to replace it.
The ufactory basicly does its job and is good to integrate from python but it has less reach/flexibility than I expected on first sight, (at least our) gripper has no GripTo(width:float) function: its either close or open, then It was on medium sensitivity so sensitive, that it detected an obstacle while just its own weight pulled it down when fully extended and now it sometimes drops plates (In that case it was not me investigating). And the one from a colleague in Amsterdam broke down (dont know the details).
I have not worked much with the UR but It has been quietly doing its job for a few years.
For equal price, I would recommend the PF:
Yeah, there’s the rub. The uFactory arms are 1/4 or better the price of the other two.
Thanks for the info though, Stefan.