PlateLoc

The Agilent PlateLoc is a roll-fed thermal microplate sealer. Revolution sets the seal time and temperature on each call, so a schedule can seal different labware with different settings without reconfiguring the instrument between plates.

At a glance

Sealing temperature	30 – 200 °C
Cycle time	Approximately 8 seconds per plate
Sealing technology	Thermal, roll fed
Microplate height	Up to 51 mm (2″)
Weight	20 kg
Revolution control	Seal with time and temperature, pre-heat, set seal count, clear error

Specifications

Agilent publishes the following, beyond what’s already in “At a glance” above.

Warm-up time	5 min
Cool-down time	90 min
Dimensions (W × D × H)	21.6 × 39.9 × 58.4 cm
Heat seals	Clear and aluminium seal rolls; pierceable and peelable options
Certification	CE (EU), cCSAus (Canada/USA NRTL), RCM (Australia)

Supported labware

• ANSI/SBS 1-2004 through ANSI/SBS 4-2004 standard microplates
• Thermal-sealing compatible plates with raised sample well rims
• Skirtless and half-skirt PCR plates require the PCR Plate Support

Agilent notes the instrument automatically adjusts for a wide range of microplates and ships with four types of plate stage insert. It also holds up to 10 programmable presets, and has a sleep mode that shuts off the screen and hotplate after a period of inactivity.

The 5 minute warm-up is the figure that affects a schedule: a sealer coming from cold is not ready for the first plate immediately, and Agilent’s ~8 second cycle applies once it is at temperature.

Choosing seal time and temperature

Agilent is explicit that seal time and temperature depend on the microplate and the seal being used, and recommends running optimisation tests to find the right combination — pointing users at their Seal Selection Guide for starting points.

That is why Revolution takes both as parameters rather than storing one profile: the correct values are a property of the labware and consumable, not of the instrument.

Supported methods

Available on both variants:

• Seal — seal the plate, given a sealing time (seconds) and a sealing temperature (°C)
• Await temperature — wait until the instrument reaches a target temperature, bounded by a timeout. Use this to absorb the warm-up before the first plate arrives rather than inside the seal step

Available on PlateLoc only (not on PlateLoc-NT):

• Set temperature (async) — start heating to a target temperature without blocking, so the schedule can do other work while the sealer comes up
• Set seal count — set the seal count
• Clear error — clear an error state on the instrument

The async pair is worth using together on PlateLoc: set temperature early in a method, get on with the plate preparation, then await temperature immediately before the seal. Sealing without either means the first plate may reach a sealer that has not finished heating.

Two device variants

Revolution recognises two forms of this instrument, and they differ in more than seal counting:

• PlateLoc — the standard instrument. Supports all five operations above, including seal count tracking, clearing an error state, and asynchronous pre-heating
• PlateLoc-NT — described by the driver as without seal count tracking. Its device class implements only Seal and Await temperature; Set temperature (async), Set seal count, and Clear error are not available on this variant at all

If your instrument is an NT, expect the consumable roll to be managed by the operator rather than counted by the instrument, and plan warm-up and error recovery without the operations that variant doesn’t implement.

Integration

Revolution talks to the PlateLoc over a serial connection.

Prerequisites

• The instrument must be cabled to the Revolution host and its COM port number known before the device is initialised.
• A seal roll suitable for the labware must be loaded — clear or aluminium, pierceable or peelable as the assay requires.
• Skirtless or half-skirt PCR plates need the PCR Plate Support fitted, and the correct plate stage insert for the labware.
• Seal time and temperature should be determined by optimisation for your plate and seal combination before a method depends on them.

Device configuration

Property	Purpose
Com port number	Serial port the instrument is connected on

If you need more of this instrument driven from a schedule, get in touch — the driver is extended on demand.

Operations

These are available from a Run Device Operation step.

Await Temperature

Applies the sealing temperature and holds the step open until the sealer reports it is ready at that temperature. The step fails if the sealer reports a fault while it warms up, or if the given timeout elapses first.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Sealing Temperature	int	—	The temperature the sealer must reach before the step completes. The step applies this value itself, so it does not need to have been set by an earlier step.
Timeout	TimeSpan	—	How long to wait for the sealer to reach the temperature before the step is abandoned and reported as timed out. A zero timeout waits for as long as the sealer takes.

Clear Error

Clears a latched fault on the plate sealer so that it reports ready and can accept work again. This step does not fail when the fault will not clear, so an uncleared fault surfaces at the next sealing or temperature step instead.

Raise Error

Makes this device report a failure on demand: the step fails with an error naming the device, and the operator is offered the usual error recovery choices. No command reaches the instrument and nothing moves, and the failure is raised in simulation as well as on a real system, so this is the step to use when rehearsing how a schedule handles a device failure.

Seal

Seals the plate currently on the sealer, applying the given sealing temperature and sealing time, and holds the step open until the sealer reports the cycle finished. One seal is deducted from the device's remaining seal count before the cycle starts, and the step fails instead of sealing once that count is used up.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Sealing Time	double	—	How long the seal is applied to the plate, in seconds.
Sealing Temperature	int	—	The temperature the sealer is set to for this seal. The step applies it and waits for the sealer to be ready before the cycle starts, so it overrides a temperature set by an earlier step.

Set Seal Count

Records how many seals remain on the roll fitted to this sealer, replacing the figure the system currently holds. Each seal deducts one from that figure and sealing is refused once it is used up, so this is the step to run after fitting a new roll.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Seal Count	int	—	The number of seals left on the roll now fitted to this sealer. Sealing steps count down from this figure and are refused once it is used up.

Set Temperature Async

Sends the sealing temperature to the sealer and returns as soon as the sealer accepts it, so other steps can run while it warms up. It does not wait for the temperature to be reached, so use the step that waits for sealing temperature where the schedule must not continue until the sealer is up to temperature.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Sealing Temperature	int	—	The temperature the sealer is set to work towards. The step returns as soon as the sealer accepts the value, so the sealer may still be warming up when the next step begins.