Gripper Accessory Speeds Liquid Handling

A new gripper accessory is designed to facilitate the rapid and precise movement of microplates and tip boxes to all deck positions by enabling a broader range of automated applications.

Allowing plate moves in less then three seconds with a precision of 0.1 mm, the gripper is a good solution for high throughput liquid handling applications. The gripper, developed by Velocity 11 (Menlo Park, CA, USA), is available as a standard component or as an add-on to an existing Bravo liquid-handling platform of Velocity 11.

In pharmaceutical research, samples are often precious, but the gripper position control ensures that a plate is never dropped even if the Bravo loses power. Microplate pick and place reliability are assured with an integrated plate sensor that verifies the presence of all plate types. Gripping and deployment axes are independent from the liquid handling, which allows full tips to remain attached during plate movements. This feature also ensures that liquid is never dispensed unintentionally while moving plates.

Velocity 11's latest high-speed, precision liquid handling platform is based on a space-saving nine-plate-position footprint that can fit inside a standard laminar flow hood. With seven different easy-to-change head types and numerous plate pad options, the platform can be customized to meet the needs of a wide range of assays. The platform utilizes the proven high-accuracy pipette heads of the company's VPrep pipettor for dispensing from 100 nl to 200 µl in 96, 384, and 1536 well formats or to a single column or row of any of these plate types.

Velocity 11 introduced the new gripper accessory at a meeting of the European Laboratory Robotics Interest Group (ELRIG) in Whittlebury (UK) in July 2006.



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Velocity 11