We use Cartesian Honeybee X8 machines (8 tips). They take about 10 minutes to set a 96-drop plate including the washes of the tips. 3 or 4 drops per condition wouldnt take much longer. Optimisation and additive/detergent screens take a little less time.
The plates are pipetted under a close-fitting cover to (virtually) eliminate evaporation, which IMO is better than a humidity chamber. Consumable costs extend to isopropanol and water, with the occasional replacement valve or tip. Since people here also tend to turn up at beer o'clock on a Friday evening (must be an Oxford thing...) we have two machines (and another one imminent) to increase throughput. HTH Tom ** Tom Walter B.Sc. M.Res. ** ** Oxford Protein Production Facility Tel: +44 (0)1865 287747 ** ** Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics Fax: +44 (0)1865 287547 ** ** Roosevelt Drive [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** ** Headington, Oxford OX3 7BN http://www.oppf.ox.ac.uk ** ---- Original message ---- >Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:10:26 -0400 >From: JOE CRYSTAL <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Fwd: [ccp4bb] crystallisation robot >To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK > > Hi, > > Does anyone have information about how long it takes to set up > a 96-well tray for the crystallization robots available? > Besides cost per tray and maintenance cost, another important > feature we consider is the time for setting up a 96-well > tray. It is an important factor since we are talking about > sub-microliter drops. > > Best, > > Joe > > On Fri, Jan 18, 2008 at 12:28 PM, Lisa A Nagy > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Al's Oil on the plates: > What a nightmare!!!!!!! > The oil creeps up the plate and over the sides. It dissolves > adhesives. > It makes me say bad words in multiple languages. > Bigger drops + no oil = fewer bad words. > Lisa > -- > Lisa A. Nagy, Ph.D. > University of Alabama-Birmingham > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -----Original Message----- > From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of > Patrick Shaw Stewart > Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 2:20 AM > To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK > Subject: [ccp4bb] Fwd: [ccp4bb] crystallisation robot > > One thing that people often overlook is that quite a lot of > protein > can be lost by denaturation on the surface of the drop. > This is more > significant for smaller drops. Two suggestions: (1) > increase the > proportion of protein in the - technical term - teeny drop > to say two > thirds and (2) cover the drops with oil eg Al's oils > (silicone/paraffin). You still get vapor diffusion though > the oil , > and you'd like to slow up equilibration. of course (2) > slows up the > robotics a little, but both should be trivial to set up..
