Re: [DIYbio] Opentrons OT-2 release

For the p1000, I'd just pipette 3-4 times with the p300. It's a little bit annoying, but whatever. 

I'm strongly against just going with used lab robots. I have a CAS1200 right next to me, which is a fantastic little bot for what it does, but is rapidly getting outdated and I would not invest time in. Tecan I've had horrible experience with. Last lab we had an evo that I wanted to get a PCR protocol on, and they quoted us 10k to have a specialist come out and install it. Sure, you get picking and streaking, but you also get nailed down to a single software source that basically can just screw you whenever they want. Which is what happened back in last lab. Even Tecan's service has been subpar for me. Sure, they respond very quickly, and kindly, but there isn't substance I get out of those conversations ("We have the manual for your model plate reader, let me send it right over!" with no response afterwards even with multiple followups, or "the software for your plate reader can be downloaded for $3000, or you can use our free version, which has basically no features and it only works on windows xp"). And even that has been better than my experience with other companies, which when I mention I'm working at home simply ghost me. 

Another lab next to us works with RNA. Basically, they had to reimplement the tecan API from scratch to get it to do what they want, which has taken hundreds of dev hours. With the OT, since we had their actual source code, we've actually tweaked it itself to do what we needed. Saved tons of headaches and hours. 

Those attachments aren't going to be cheap. The software isn't either. Meanwhile, within a week or two we can get colony picking working on an OT. There's hidden costs in investing in robots, because you also invest in the ecosystem. I bought this CAS1200 for $350 off ebay, and it has all those nice little features like liquid detection, nice metal blocks to keep enzymes cold, and a UV lamp on it's top for sterility. I still use the OT1 far more often, which in almost any metric of hardware is an inferior robot. However, it can seamlessly integrate with the rest of our software stack, and that is HUGELY beneficial for productivity, and we can chat with their actual development team instead of salespeople. 

It's pretty easy to code in python. You can probably pick it up in a couple of days. In addition, your productivity only accelerates once you get used to the platform, in comparison to other more gui-based platforms, that don't scale quite as easily.

TL;DR: Raw price and hardware is not a good metric to determine which robot to use.

Koeng

On Monday, June 25, 2018 at 1:31:44 PM UTC-7, Dakota Hamill wrote:

Letting the omnitrays dry in a biosafety cabinet or laminar flow does help them to suck up liquid better as Koenig mentioned.  With 96 well spacing I've seen even 1-2uL drops on fresh poured plates find a way to draw into eachother making for a useless bioassay reading from bleeding.

I got the online demo of the OT2 on Friday.  I wish they had an 8 span P1000.   With the list price of the machine plus two 8-span pipettes at ~$6,000 you're looking at a price comparable to some used TECAN EVO's with larger plate decks and a multitude of other head attachments for picking/streaking.

The open source software is a benefit, though I'm code-incompetent so not sure I could make use of it's customizability anyway.

I agree add-ons like hotels, plate sealer, and a small arm/expandable deck would make it even more attractive even at $10k-$15k.

On Jun 25, 2018 4:10 PM, "Koeng" <koen...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yep, we leave the plates on the opentrons for drying. 

I think I might have accidentally responded incorrectly: The OpenTrons doesn't aliquot the competent cells. I do that myself in the cold room because we generally don't want to put a robot in there. Also, electronic pipettes make it very easy. However, in that manual pipetting, I didn't mix, which I presume is a major problem. 

For me, the #1 add on to an OpenTrons would be a plate handler + a microplate sealer. If I had that, I could automate nearly everything on the machine. (except making mastermix, because I don't trust the bots to get every last drop of enzyme)

After vortexing, there is a lot of liquid on the microplate seal. When I tear it off, liquid gets everywhere and it sucks because it can cause contamination and majorly reduces the liquid in each well. An improv plate spinner made of a salad spinner fixes all that! Though, now that you mention it, might be a good way to get liquid out of plates after cleaning them.

Koeng

On Monday, June 25, 2018 at 12:53:05 PM UTC-7, John Griessen wrote:

On 06/25/2018 12:46 PM, Koeng wrote:
> On 06/25/2018 11:30 AM, John Griessen wrote:
> >Sounds really good.  Does your tray need a mini shaker to stay ready longer?
> The trays/rectangular plates usually need to dry a LOT to soak up the serial dilutions quickly.

So, that means you leave the plates in the opentrons drying for long periods of time?
If so, it does seems like shaking/circular motion would be good for recovering from your case of
"Don't let competent cells settle at the bottom of the trough"?
Maybe forced dessicating by stirred air is desirable too?
This all starts me thinking of a conveyor for trays and a tray stacker at one end.

> For the actual synthesis plates, I
> just sort of vortex them and then put them in a salad spinner to spin the liquid to the bottom (this works FANTASTIC: Better than
> what I would ask from any piece of actual lab equipment and it's only like $15).

So, does this mean that the salad spinner is a way to get all the liquid out of the trays and all mixed together
in the bottom of the spinner?

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