Nanolitre Dispensing

Spot-Station was developed by Aitken Scientific to control a Deerac Fluidics nanolitre dispenser. It enables users to define plasticware to use and a sequence of actions to perform liquid handling to and from the plasticware. Tasks include aspirating and dispensing liquids, bulk copying of plates, delays and a customisable wash cycle.

The user interface to the left shows the list of tasks to be performed, the plates currently loaded onto the nanolitre dispenser and one of the tasks being edited.

For Spot-Station, the control of the hardware was handled by a COM object provided by a standalone module; this allows the control routines to be shared with other applications. In addition, Spot-station publishes itself as a COM automation server, which allows it to be remote controlled by other software, simplifying automation in the laboratory.

For more information about Spot-Station please visit www.deerac.com