Technique
Optimizing liquid classes for difficult liquids
Viscous, volatile, foaming, and low-cohesion liquids each need a different set of parameter moves. Starting recipes by liquid family, and why each one works.
Technique
Hands-on methods for aspirating, dispensing, and mixing accurately, from viscous liquids to volatile solvents and everything in between.
- Technique
Diagnosing pipetting problems: a symptom-to-fix guide
Droplets, bubbles, foam, splashing, and first-dispense outliers each point at a specific parameter. Read the symptom, reach for the right knob, and stop guessing.
- Technique
Automating cell culture: gentle liquid handling for living samples
Cells are not just another liquid. Media changes and washes need low shear and careful aspiration heights so the monolayer or pellet survives the transfer.
- Technique
Plate reformatting: moving a protocol between 96- and 384-well densities
Consolidating four 96-well plates into one 384, or expanding back out. What changes for your liquid class when the well shrinks and the map interleaves.
- Technique
Cherry-picking and hit-picking: variable transfers driven by a pick list
Cherry-picking moves a sparse, data-driven set of wells rather than a whole plate. The map changes every run; the liquid class should not.
- Technique
Transferring a liquid class between instruments and sites without starting over
A calibration is tied to the hardware it was built on. Here is how to move a liquid class to another instrument or lab and prove it still delivers.
- Technique
How to pipette viscous liquids without losing volume
Glycerol, DMSO, and detergents defeat default settings. A practical guide to flow rates, delays, and air gaps for accurate automated handling of viscous liquids.
- Technique
Choosing tips for your liquid class: geometry, coatings, and fit
Tip volume range, filtered, conductive, wide-bore, and low-retention options all change how a liquid behaves. Why the tip is part of the class, not an accessory.
- Technique
Air gaps and blowout: the small settings that stop dripping and carryover
Air gaps and blowout volume are the most misunderstood liquid class parameters. What each one does, when to use it, and how they prevent dripping and carryover.
- Technique
Ultra-low-volume and non-contact dispensing: where classic liquid classes stop
Below a microliter, air-displacement classes run out of room. Non-contact and acoustic dispensing change the parameters, the physics, and how you calibrate.
- Technique
Correction curves, explained
A correction curve maps target volume to what the instrument must aim for, so the delivered volume is right across the whole range and not just at one point.
- Technique
Writing a liquid handling protocol: code vs visual designers
A protocol is where liquid classes meet the deck. Scripted Python and visual designers each have strengths for reproducibility and reuse, and the class fits into both.
- Technique
Environmental drift: how the room changes your pipetting
Temperature, humidity, air pressure and vibration all shift how a liquid behaves. Why you develop classes at normal lab conditions, record them, and re-check on change.
- Technique
Touch-off: shedding the last drop against the well
A hanging droplet is delivered volume that never left the tip. How a touch-off against the well wall finishes a dispense, and when it helps or hurts.
- Technique
Pipetting low volumes on large channels
Dispensing 0.5 to 20 microliters on 1000 microliter channels is where errors hide. Smaller tips, surface dispensing, and turning off liquid following keep it honest.
- Technique
Pipetting detergents and surfactants: foam, wetting, and the settings that tame them
Detergents wet everything, foam at the slightest agitation, and creep up the tip. The class settings that keep low-surface-tension liquids under control.
- Technique
Dispense modes: free, contact-wet, and contact-dry, and when to use each
Whether the tip free-falls the liquid, touches a wet well, or touches a dry surface changes accuracy, contamination risk, and speed. A practical guide to the three modes.
- Technique
Tip waste and disposal: the unglamorous end of a transfer
A transfer is not finished until the tip is gone. How tip ejection and waste routines fail quietly, and why they matter to carryover and run reliability.
- Technique
Liquid level detection: how the tip knows where the surface is
Capacitive and pressure-based level detection let a liquid handler follow the meniscus, submerge just enough, and catch clots or empty wells. Here is how each works.