

Show HN: My open-source liquid handler ( biohacking ) - delinquentme

Excuse my typing, I've just been up for a few hours and I've made my deadline for SB 5.0 =]<p>... but for HN.. you guys get it early<p>I present to you my fellow hackers:<p>https://github.com/delinquentme/LH001<p>....I call it the 'LH001' , it is: open source, arduino based, 96 well microplate, peristaltic pump, liquid handler<p>running: open protocol controls ( in browser or over wire ), 
 In Ruby on Rails<p>And here it is in person: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY5IY5CZ1es<p>Questions? Critiques? Thoughts?<p>So, do I have HN's permission to change my twitter bio to include "biohacker" ?
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Combo
Hi I'm a postdoc in biology and just stumbled across this as I was thinking of
ways to use electronics to help automate things in the lab. This is very neat
and impressive, keep it up! I look forward to seeing it in action. What is
your background by the way? If you're interested I was thinking of playing
around and maybe building a PCR (for fun) and, more practically, a 96-well
plate auto-washer (for those laborious ELISA wash steps -- basically it's
filling the wells to the top, usually 400ul, then vacuum sucking it all off,
repeat 3 times). I bet you could do that, maybe offer me some tips if I do try
it? I have some experience coding with the PicKit but was thinking maybe the
Arduino is the way to go in the future.

Thanks for sharing your creations!

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Khao
I've watched the video and read the description on github... I still can't
understand what does it do. Does it have something to do with this :
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_handling_robot> ?

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delinquentme
So the dispenser runs through the wells and dispenses fixed volumes of liquids
per row

Such a thing could be used in the final detection phase of an ELISA protocol,
or simply as a really really fast pipette

( videos to come :D )

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polyfractal
Very cool project. Some future features you may want to think about:

-If you add imaging it could be used for high-throughput crystallography.

-If you can control position of the pipette and flow speed of the liquid, it could be used for cell culture. Sterilizing it would be tricky though.

-If you add multiple liquids it could be used for immunocytochemistry.

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delinquentme
1)I've always been of the assumption that imaging is rather difficult
2)Currently the pipettes are stationary and the plate moves .. and the flow
speed absolutely already built in :D 3) multiple liquids = id love to see a
modular bolt on pump ( HMMMM )

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nickpinkston
2.) Maybe he meant you could spread the solute over an agar flat plate?

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buckwild
I'm not really a lab person (or I haven't been for years now), but doesn't
stuff like this already exist? What does this have that the current technology
does not?

This is interesting, but you gotta sell it to us!

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delinquentme
buckwild you're aboslutely right this problem IS solved.. however not at any
price NEAR what this costs ... this one came in around $600 where the BIOTEK
liquid handler i based it off of is $5000, so were talking almost an order of
magnitude cheaper :D

.. and yes it does the same thing .. puts liquid into microplates :D

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revorad
This looks interesting. Do you want to sell these?

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delinquentme
So if someone was interested .. absolutely i'd build one.. however!

first i need to add 12" modular conveyor systems .. to allow it to run through
numerous plates

