Low-cost plate handling laboratory
By Ulf Hottung (Edited by Shizu Yamaguchi)
In small laboratories across North America, many routines, such as insertion or removal, have been performed manually by lab staff. This process can tie up personnel and also cost additional time and money.
Many owners of these labs seek to automate their machines to optimize their processes and increase their throughput rates. Oftentimes, however, these lab owners hesitate to automate because they assume there would be high costs and time-consuming integration work. What they fail to realize is that to improve their lab setups, even simple combinations of devices or magazines can work well.
What is important to the operators?
Among the most frequent responses from laboratory operators about what makes a good laboratory instrument, these statements are common:
- Low investment costs
- Easy operation by the user
- High throughput thanks to 24/7 operation
- Small amount of floor space required
How can igus assist Canadian laboratories?
What follows is a case study to demonstrate an example of how igus helped make automation a reality for a customer named Peak Analysis and Automation, a company that works out of the UK and US.
The customer came to igus with their own requirements to provide a maintenance-free and lubrication-free, cost-effective and multi-functional device. The device now enables the insertion and removal of Petri dishes and well plates/microwell plates with 300 (!) different devices.
The following parts from igus were used in the lab instrument for Peak:
- The main functional elements
- An E2 micro energy chain as cable guidance for the gripper/the lift housing
- A toothed belt axis based on the ZLW-0630 for vertical movement
- A driven PRT slewing ring bearing with toothing for the rotation axis of the tower
How did the customer react?
The customer was so satisfied with igus that he wrote a press article, and he also created a product demonstration video. See the press report here: https://www.scientistlive.com/content/lab-automation-case-study
Is there a simple solution—even without fully integrating into all the different control systems?
Our customer’s success inspired us to try it ourselves. We kept things straightforward—no complex device integration, just one of our robots. The result was simple, but still pretty cool!
Take a look at the video:
Although the robot shown isn’t a cobot from the robolink modular kit and would need to be enclosed, the robolink control software and controller interfaces still make it easy to set up basic integrations.
Feel free to reach out to us at 1-800-965-2496 or start a live chat at www.igus.ca. We look forward to your questions.
