Hi All. Has anyone else been struggling with extremely long delays in getting the proper parts from ThermoFisher to repair/service Cytomats?
We have a Cytomat 10 carousel that failed right before a scheduled service PM. It took 2 months from initial request to getting the 1 year PM kit shipped to us, and getting an engineer scheduled onsite for the orignally planned PM. The Service engineer diagnosed that the defective part was the wiring that connects the shovel to the motherboard, which is only part of the “3 year” PM kit.
This has been on order for another 2 months now, and we still have not received anything and cannot get a straight answer for estimated time for arrival of these parts from ThermoFisher.
Are others struggling with the same problems in getting parts? I’ve reached out to a few 3rd party service companies, but no one else seems to be able to currently support the model that we have (ordered late 2021 received early 2022). Or does anyone know of a company that can repair these?
Get some 5-wire, detach the plugs and replace the cable manually
Jokes aside, it seems like customer service has been on a steady decline since around 2020 - and likely way before that. No real solutions here, just more fuel for the fire. Speaking of which, claiming that there’s an electrical fire might just be the quickest way to get a service engineer on site - no guarantee they’ll have spare parts though.
Given that the Cytomat series is allegedly being discontinued your first suggestion might become more realistic. I’ve heard that it’s specifically an issue with the chip supply. It would be interesting to get some detailed schematics of the electronics and logic board to potentially enable more self-repair for this instrument given that the manufacturer can no longer support it.
We’re dying over here with Cytomat service and it’s been going on for at least a year. I’ve got 7 of them. Last year we were down 1 for a quarter, and just had to move all of them ourselves because thermo wouldn’t respond to messages. All 7 are covered under service contract, so that doesn’t help either.
Also on the lookout for a 3rd party to service these things, and long term will be switching them out to liconics.
Yes! Both the LPX and STX varieties. We like and prefer them.
In my experience, they’re faster, quieter, and more reliable than the Cytomat. Liconic is very responsive and 3rd party service exists. They also have more configuration options to expand.
Hope that helps! And can very much answer any specific questions.
Thanks all for the feedback. I’m sorry @rachaelcohen that you are dealing with this too, but knowing that they are treating others with even more units under contract this way is very helpful for future planning purposes. Thank you for sharing your experience.
I hope I am not too late for this conversation (just discovered this chat), I am also struggling with Cytomat as it has been over a year since we encountered issues with the humidifier of the machine and even the manufacture could not repair it. According to what I read here, do you know of other companies with machines compatible with the Biomek series?
Also, @Stefan you mentioned Cytomat series will be discontinued, do you have any more info? I requested a replacement for the incubator we currently have and they said they “don’t have one” so I was wondering if it had something to do with it…
No more info than that but I’ve heard it from a few different people. Pretty crazy that even with the high price tag they weren’t able to continue offering it, but Thermo Fisher is such a diverse business (what other company does both gene therapy manufacturing and produces consumable labware) that its probably a challenge to keep all the necessary engineering knowledge in-house.
Its out of date (I know they integrate with QInstruments, which is not on this list), but they list multiple Liconic STX models that they do integrate with.
We finally got ours fixed after 2.5 months of waiting for parts. The engineer for my area is great, no complaints there. It’s the lack of critical parts being stockpiled/plans to improve this thats the bigger issue.
