Cytomat 10C

The Cytomat 10C is a high-capacity random-access plate store built around a rotary carousel. Revolution’s driver for it does not expose any atmosphere or shaking control — only the Cytomat 2 does. That’s worth flagging explicitly: despite the “C” in the name, which in Thermo’s own range usually marks a climate-controlled incubator, this driver class behaves as an ambient store. Thermo does sell an ambient “10 Hotel” alongside the incubated “10 C450” at this size, both with the same rated capacity — so the capacity figure below applies regardless of which physical variant you have.

At a glance

Capacity	210 SBS microplates (96-/384-well), Thermo’s published figure for the 10-size Cytomat
Default grid (Revolution simulation layout)	10 columns × 21 rows
Atmosphere / shaking control	Not exposed by this driver
Revolution control	The store’s turntable and shovel transfer mechanism; self-scan inventory

Specifications

Thermo Fisher publishes a capacity of 210 SBS microplates for the 10-size Cytomat, consistent across both the ambient “10 Hotel” and the incubated “10 C450” variants. A breakdown by plate type (1536-well, deep-well, etc.) specific to this size could not be confidently sourced, so it isn’t given here — treat 210 as the standard-plate figure and confirm anything more specific against your own unit.

Capacity in Revolution’s default simulation layout is 10 columns × 21 rows; this is a default used for simulation and commissioning, not a guaranteed physical maximum — actual capacity depends on plate height and the shelf pitch fitted.

Supported methods

Transfer mechanism

• Extend shovel / retract shovel
• Rotate shovel to carousel / rotate shovel to setdown — the shovel moves between two fixed positions on this device, not to an arbitrary location
• Rotate turntable to store location
• Move height motor to above / below store location
• Move to wait position
• Move transfer station to basic position / to position 2 — only meaningful where a transfer station is fitted (HasTransferStation device property)
• Open / close automatic lift door
• Initialise hardware

This is the store’s own mechanism exposed step by step. A schedule should normally rely on the scheduler’s standard pick/place mechanism to store and retrieve plates and leave it at that — the individual movements above exist for commissioning, teaching and fault recovery, where you need to place the shovel or the turntable exactly rather than move a plate.

Inventory and status

• Start self scan / Start self scan (full)
• Show status / Show extended status
• Show extended options settings

A self-scan rebuilds the inventory from what is physically present. Run one after any manual loading, or Revolution’s view of the contents is only as good as its bookkeeping.

Integration

Prerequisites

• The store must be reachable from the Revolution host.
• Plate type must suit the store’s shelf pitch; capacity depends on plate height.
• This driver does not read back or set temperature, humidity, CO₂ or O₂ — plan atmosphere- sensitive work around that rather than assuming set points exist to check.
• Run a self-scan after manual loading.

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.

Close Automatic Lift Door

Closes the unit's automatic lift door and waits for the unit to report the move complete, failing if that has not happened within ten seconds. Show Status reports whether the door is open, so it can be used to confirm the result.

Extend Shovel

Extends the shovel from its retracted position, at whatever height and rotation the mechanism is currently holding, and leaves the other axes where they are. The shovel stays extended until Retract Shovel is run, and the step fails if the move is not reported complete within ten seconds.

Initialise Hardware

Clears any latched error flags and runs the unit's own initialisation sequence, waiting for the unit to report that it has finished and failing if that takes longer than three minutes. Bringing the device online does not run this sequence, so this is the step to use after a power cycle or after clearing a fault.

Move Height Motor To Above Store Location

Drives the height axis to above the level of the given store location and leaves it there; nothing else moves and no labware is picked or placed. The device must be initialised and not part way through a self scan, and Move Height Motor To Below Store Location makes the matching move to below the location.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Store Location	int	—	The store location the height axis moves to, identified by its number in this unit's layout rather than by a height. The axis stops above that location and no labware is picked, placed or recorded.

Move Height Motor To Below Store Location

Drives the height axis to below the level of the given store location and leaves it there; nothing else moves and no labware is picked or placed. The device must be initialised and not part way through a self scan, and Move Height Motor To Above Store Location makes the matching move to above the location.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Store Location	int	—	The store location the height axis moves to, identified by its number in this unit's layout rather than by a height. The axis stops below that location and no labware is picked, placed or recorded.

Move To Wait Position

Moves the mechanism to its wait position inside the unit, close to the transfer station. Placing labware on this device moves the mechanism there first, so this step returns it to the same position without moving any labware.

Move Transfer Station To Basic Position

Moves a fitted transfer station to its basic position, position 1, which is where the unit loads labware onto it and takes labware off it. Store and retrieve steps move it there themselves, and a transfer station that is already in the basic position is reported as success rather than an error.

Move Transfer Station To Position2

Moves a fitted transfer station to position 2, the position it is left in at the end of a retrieve so that labware on it can be picked. A transfer station that is already in position 2 is reported as success rather than an error.

Open Automatic Lift Door

Opens the unit's automatic lift door and waits for the unit to report the move complete, failing if that has not happened within ten seconds. The device must be initialised and not part way through a self scan for this step to run.

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.

Retract Shovel

Retracts the shovel so that it is clear of the store positions, leaving the other axes where they are. The unit retracts the shovel itself at the start of a self scan, and the step fails if the move is not reported complete within ten seconds.

Rotate Shovel To Carousel

Rotates the shovel round to face the stacks on the turntable, so that extending it reaches into a store location rather than the setdown. Nothing is picked or placed, the shovel keeps whatever height and extension it currently holds, and the step fails if the rotation is not reported complete within ten seconds.

Rotate Shovel To Setdown

Rotates the shovel round to face the setdown instead of the stacks on the turntable, so that extending it reaches the setdown position rather than a store location. Rotate Shovel To Carousel makes the opposite move; nothing is picked or placed and the step fails if the rotation is not reported complete within ten seconds.

Rotate Turntable To Store Location

Rotates the turntable so that the stack holding the given store location comes round to the shovel, leaving the height axis and the shovel itself where they are. This is the same carousel that Rotate Shovel To Carousel turns the shovel towards, and the step fails if the rotation is not reported complete within ten seconds.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Store Location	int	—	The store location the turntable rotates to, identified by its number in this unit's layout rather than by an angle. The rotation is decided by the stack that location sits in, so locations at different heights in the same stack all rotate to the same place, and no labware is picked, placed or recorded.

Show Extended Options Settings

Reads the option settings the unit reports for itself and shows them in the Revolution console. Only the transfer station options are decoded, covering which variants are fitted and which position each sits on, and these are configuration flags rather than the live status shown by Show Status.

Show Extended Status

Reads the unit's extended status register and shows it in the Revolution console: separate busy flags for the external, upper and lower systems, the upper and lower gate positions, the device door, and which transfer stations are occupied. Not every unit answers this request, and on one that does not the step fails with a comms error instead of reporting a status.

Show Status

Reads the unit's status register and shows it in the Revolution console: the busy, ready, warning and error flags, whether the handler and the transfer station are occupied, and whether the automatic lift door and the device door are open. Nothing moves and no stored record is changed.

Start Self Scan

Re-scans the store locations in the given range and corrects the storage manager's record for just those positions, recording as empty any location where no barcode can be read. Only one scan can run on a unit at a time, and the step waits for the whole range to be scanned before it completes.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
First Store Location	int	—	The first store location the scan covers. Locations below it are left alone, so the storage manager keeps whatever it already records for them.
Last Store Location	int	—	The last store location the scan covers. Both ends of the range are included, so setting this to the same value as the first location re-scans a single location.

Start Self Scan Full

Re-scans every location in this unit's layout and rebuilds the storage manager's record of it from the barcodes read, recording as empty any location where no barcode can be read. On a large store this can take more than thirty minutes, and the step waits for the whole scan to finish.