I have a unique circumstance, I need to transfer a large volume of liquid into a 6-well plate followed by mixing the resultant liquid. To achieve this I have used the Split_Wells function to perform the aliquoting of the liquid but when I attempt to use the MixFromFixedHeight, using the same sequence generated by the Split-Wells function, the mixing does not work as I anticipated. Mixing occurs 1 channel at a time and all 8 channels mix 1 well instead of 4 channels in 1 well and the other 4 channels in the other well. I am trying to avoid raising the tips out of the liquid to perform the mix but I have not gotten the functions to work with each other. Any ideas out there?
Hi @Lost_in_Automation ,
I was able to reproduce this issue. Unfortunately, Pipetting Tools functions are not compatible with Split Wells. The reason is Pipetting Tools has safety features built in to avoid collisions based on rack dimensions so that it doesn’t try to move in X or Y while inside a well. Split wells adds floating single well 9x9 mm racks inside the regions of the well, so Pipetting Tools sees each position as individual racks which triggers the checks and leads to the interaction you are seeing.
You could use the minimized Z-Move after step on the dispense and then use a second dispense step of 0 volume to perform the mixing. This will keep the tips within the container clearance height (this can be dialed in in the ctr file) instead of moving to traverse height in between dispense and mix.
Thank you @BrandonBare_Hamilton. I though there could be another way to achieve this but alas it was not meant to be.
If the 6 plate well is equivalent to 4 wells on a 96 well plate, you could add a ‘shadow’ 96 well plate to the layout, that is a 96 well plate in the same position as the 6 wells plate. Then you define a sequence for the shadow 96 containing the wells of the columns that align with center wells of the 6 well plate, and you use that sequence to mix. Technically it should get all four tips wells of the 6 wells plate.
@FEPrecedeBio unfortunately the plate in question has an SBS format base but the wells are not in a SBS format. Very odd thing to work around.