Dear CCP4ers, We are currently fighting with our crystallization robot and would be happy to find out if anyone else has experienced similar problems - and hopefully found a solution.
To make a long and extremely frustrating story with our robot short: We are running an ArtRobbins 4-Channel Phoenix in our xtal-facility. It is equipped with the "new" nano-dispensers and TC-needles which are probably also present in the Cobra or Gryphon instruments. Our problem is that almost every two days we have serious trouble with the nano-dispensing needles, which either become leaky or completely clogged. We do not even heavily use our Phoenix or use membrane proteins in detergents - in average we are dispensing less than 5-10plates of usually nice behaving proteins per day. The same proteins dispensed with the "old" needle systems (in the neighboring MPI facility) are not causing any problems at all. I am not really sure how to avoid these problems or how to deal with it. We do almost everything with our samples to remove aggregates (sample centrifuged 10min@13k rpm, supernatant filtered again through filter units). I am happy to receive any comments or hints regarding the Phoenix (or Cobra/Gryphon if the nanodispensers are the same type) or any additional comment e.g. on how you prepare samples in your lab. I would be grateful if anyone with ideas or suggestions could write to me off-list, I will post a summary if we can solve the problems. Thanks and regards from munich, Gregor --- Dr. Gregor Witte Genecenter, University of Munich (LMU) Feodor-Lynen-Str. 25 D-81377 Munich mail: wi...@genzentrum.lmu.de
