384 well plate liquid handling


Pipetting in 384 well plates involves working with smaller volume ranges. In order to do this the pipette used in the 96 well example was replaced using a smaller working volume pipette. The probe for connecting this type of tip was adapated too fit these types of tips. Also to better stabilize the fluidic flow, selectable 3-way valves (input, bypass, output) were added for each syringe.

The base microfluidic setup encompasses 8 syringes driven (disposable) by one stepper motor that are fixed into a set position to the side of the instrument and the tubing is connected to the pipetting modules that are moving.

LabBot3D-Pi software introduction is an overview of how the software is set up.

Using valves that are seperately programmed it is possible to cherry pick wells just point the valve to the dispenser when wanting to aspirate or point it to the pressure compensation vessel when not wanting to aspirate (which will draw from the vessel instead).


This is an annotated video that shows more features of this configuration

Pipette loading and aspiration. When using valves you can aspirate larger volumes not needing to reload



Filling plates. This example shows 10µl dispensing per well. In this example the syringe pump works like a 3D printer extruder and so the accuracy of dispensing is affected by the stepper motor feedrate.