Crystallography

Crystal Farm 400

Plate Handling

The plate-handling unit stores over 300 standard 96/384 well or Linbro-sized plates or over 600 MicroBatch plates. To ensure data integrity, individual barcodes track every plate’s movement. A plate can be automatically moved to the optics module for imaging in any sequence, and any or all drops on a plate can be imaged at a variety of optical conditions. A small access door with an airlock allows rapid placement of two plate magazines (16 plates each), while a single plate access door allows rapid insertion or removal of single plates.

Advanced Optics

Easily determine the presence of crystals, precipitates or clear drops with advanced optics. Zoom, focus and aperture are controlled through software with optical resolution to 1 micron. The camera incorporates 1.3 megapixels, 8 bits per pixel color depth, with a firewire interface, and the lens system provides 11:1 zoom for a field of view of 5.4mm to 0.5mm.

Cool Flash Technology

The Crystal Farm optics flashes IR and UV-filtered dual xenon light sources to illuminate the drop for imaging -- protecting your samples from light source temperature effects and enhancing crystal recognition through off-axis lighting and brightness options.

Incubation

The incubation system maintains an internal temperature in the range of 4°C to 40°C within +/-1°C of the set point. Smooth and continuous operation of internal fans ensures even temperature across the stored plates. The temperature controlled area is only periodically exposed to the external environment through the small access doors, so temperature stability is maintained far better than with conventional incubators or cold rooms.

Vibration

Throughout the design of the Crystal Farm, vibration is carefully controlled. All of the drive motors are isolated with vibration-absorbing mounts. The condenser system is on a separate chassis that lowers to the floor at installation, and the plate handling unit is isolated from the enclosure. Internal air circulating fans run at reduced speed to minimize vibration, and plate handling motion is gentle with the maximum acceleration and speed set by the system administrator.