Welcome to the PXRR automounter
information page. Users can operate our automounters directly during
scheduled visits, or they can mail us automounter-ready samples
for data collection by beamline personnel through our Mail-in program. For
additional information and
technical details on the automounter design,
click here.
Automount robots are currently comissioned at three
beamlines:
To use our automounters, follow these steps:
1) Purchase automounter compatible caps
from Hampton (catalog # HR4-779 or HR8-116). This small investment will
pay handsome dividends because our caps conform to the international
standard for robot compatibility. We recommend that you upgrade
your laboratory entirely to the new caps, which are compatible with
other robots at facilities around the
world.
2) Purchase an automounter tool set.
Many users feel more comfortable making this large upfront capital
investment after gaining confidence in our equipment and software,
and we support this by providing a loaner
tool set. We will ship the loaner set when you contact Alex Soares
at soares@bnl.gov
with seven days advance notice.
It is very important that you use the correct pin length for
your samples. The overall distance from the bottom lip of the pin cap
to the crystal position should be 22mm. This corresponds to breaking
two segments off of a standard Hampton pin.
Click here
to see a diagram of the cap and pin requirements for robotic
operation.
3) Load your samples into
robot compatible pucks. Both
written instructions and an
informative training
video are available
to help familiarize new users with the equipment and techniques for
sample preparation. Once the pucks are loaded with samples, they can be
shipped in conventional crystallography
dewars
accomodating up to seven pucks, or 112 specimens.
The effort to comission an automounter at BNL based on a
design developed at the ALS was driven by the evolving need for rapid
throughput data collection and screening at our pxotein crystallography
beamlines. This also assured a broad commonality of hardware and
auxiliary equipment.
Consequently, all equipment and tools that are user operated are cross
compatible with similar automounters at the ALS, MacChess, and at
NSLS beamline X6c. Your investment in a set of automounter pucks will
allow you to use the robots at all these facilities.
4) Enter the description of each specimen, and if desired the
planned
experimental design for each crystal, into our database.
While not required for robot operation, it is our experience that
having the description of the contents of each puck in our database
reduces the incidence of error. Remember that the great advantage of
a robotic automounter is that the user need never handle the crystal.
This is no use if the user has to run into the hutch all the time to
check which crystal was placed where!
5) Ship the dewar with pucks loaded into it to:
Attn of (beamline scientist)
National Synchrotron Light Source
Brookhaven National Laboratory
75 Brookhaven rd.
Upton, NY 11973 USA
Phone: (631) 344-7444
Last
modified
4 May 2005 by Alexei Soares