Team:Grenoble-Alpes/pipetting module

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PIPETTING MODULE

How to control the pipette ?

In our system, we need to pipette automatically different volumes to execute our biological process.

The solution we chose is to use an electronic pipette Biohit e10. The main advantage is that after removing the cap of the pipette, we can solder wires to the electronic card to control the different buttons of the pipette and it will work by itself!

- The button functions are:

- Select (mode)

- Enter

- Up (to select the volume for isntance)

- Down

- Tip Ejection

- Start (controls the piston movements)


Figure 1:Soldering of the pipette and Figure 2: Pipette Biohit e10 [1]

To make the pipette work, we need a power supply of 5 Volts and 1.5 Ampers at least. Wires are connected from an Arduino card (microcontroller) to the buttons to control them later.


Figure 3: Pipette electronic system

How to move the pipette ?

We needed a pipetting system moving vertically above the samples on the circular plate. For that, we used a linear guide with a lead screw and a motor allowing to move the pipette vertically with a good precision. All the pieces, like the guiding bars, the coupler and the lead screw have been bought on a professional website [2] to guarantee us a fluid and precise movement. It provides the precision required to pipette at the wanted depth in the Eppendorf tubes. The precision reached is about one-tenth of mm.

This linear guide system has been fixed on a wooden plate between two aluminum bars. The plate has been first engraved with a laser-cutting machine to mark the positions to drill the holes for the screws at the right position.

The vertical movement of the pipette is realized by a motor controlled with an Arduino microcontroller.


Figure 3: Pipette electronic system