[DIYbio] Re: Robotic arm for feeding plate reader

I can't address your question directly.  I've used commercial robot arms, and even with the installed easy-to-use software that knows about different plate types, has a grid for plates with known positions, etc., they are a pain to use.  Useful only for tasks that will be done the same way many, many times.  I would imagine even after the hardware is made or setup and working, the software end would take at least tens of hours to get set up (measuring plates, measuring the platform, test, repeat, etc.).  So if you want to do experiments, do them by hand, and after a few tens of repeats, when you know you'll be doing a lot more, then think about automation.

On the other hand, these automation robots are generally too big and heavy to ship, so they tend to sit around when labs are done with them.  I've seen older ones come up on surplus sites fairly often, and they tend to be inexpensive.  There are various different types of lab equipment that are basically a two axis positioning arm + something on the end, so you don't need to limit your search to just automation robots.

Cheers,

Jim L.