We just got our Flex last week and have noticed that occasionally when moving a 96 well plate into an empty deck slot the plate doesn’t sit flat. This potentially causes an issue for a subsequent pickup operation.
Is it possible to get the grippers to close up and push the plate down into position? If the plate is already sat down correctly, then it won’t push against anything, but if it’s sat up a little then it’ll push it down flat onto the deck surface.
Hey @kellogg76- we’re working on exposing some lower level API commands. I’m pretty sure these will be available in the next SW release- let me check for you.
Hey @kellogg76 - are you using python or protocol designer?
Have you tried just putting another labware on top of the plate you moved, and then removing that labware? That usually straightens it out for me since it pushes the plate down. Weight really helps get it snug in that spot when it matters
Usually Python.
If this is a piece of custom labware, you can probably adjust this better in the labware definition.
This can also be accomplished with drop_offset .It would look something like:
protocol.move_labware( plate, location, use_gripper=True, drop_offset={‘x’:0,‘y’:0,‘z’:-1} )
The z=-1 means the gripper will drop the plate 1 mm lower than without the offset. This should help seat the plate better in the deck slot.