Hi all, I wanted to share a sequence of RGA errors I’ve been experiencing on our Tecan Fluent and get some community input on whether this points to a bigger underlying issue or something manageable in house. I’m also curious whether anyone has seen a similar pattern on their system.
For context, this script has been running successfully for some time without issues. There has been no collision event, no changes to the deck layout, and no obvious reason for the RGA to suddenly start behaving differently. The arm was working fine up until these errors began appearing.
The first issue was an “encoder error signal detected occurred on arm: RGA, axis: G” which occurred right after the RGA picked up the gripper fingers and moved above a plate. Shortly after, we also started seeing a “collision detected on arm: CGA, axis: G” fault. The instrument initializes cleanly after a power cycle, but the errors reproduce at generally the same point (picking up a plate and placing it in the centrifuge) in the script every time, which makes me think this is positional or mechanical rather than purely electrical. On one attempt, the run resulted in a “hardware error” that caused the arm to lock up at the finger docking station with the fingers still mounted and the brake engaged. I was able to carefully manually release the fingers and move the arm to a free space, after which a full initialization completed successfully.
I’ve already ruled out a physical obstruction in the travel path and any recent collision or impact to the arm. I’ve also cleaned the arm well, with kimwipes, air pump carefully, and with a bit of ethanol where it’s safe to do so. It did run successfully ONCE after cleaning the dust off the encoders, but the errors persist. The fact that the error is consistent and position specific rather than random is what’s making me think there may be something more going on; whether that’s cable wear, a finger dock alignment issue, or something else entirely.
My main questions for the community are: does this pattern point to a known failure mode on the RGA? Has anyone seen a hardware error and brake lockup like this, and was it resolved in house or did it require a Tecan field service visit? Are there any RGA preventative maintenance practices that aren’t well documented but are good to follow? And at what point would you consider this beyond in-house troubleshooting?
Any input is appreciated! Happy to share log excerpts if that would help diagnose further. Thank you all so much.