The Hamilton MICROLAB STAR IVD is a multi-channel pipettor that uses air displacement based aspiration and dispensing. The air displacement technology mimics a hand held pipettor and eliminates the need for system fluid, tubes, pumps, syringes and the periodic maintenance associated with those parts. Its multi-channel system is scalable from 1 channel to 16 channels for ultimate flexibility. The STAR can also support various tip, head, and robotic arm configurations to suit the needs of any application.
The STAR can be used for any type of liquid sample including solvents. This is handled via a software module where the user defines Liquid Classes. This allows changing pipetting speeds, air gaps, and various other parameters which are dependent on the liquid and the tip being used. Per method or per pipette step, other parameters like capacitive liquid level detection, pressure liquid level detection, pipette depths, sequences, and use of Total Aspiration and Dispense Monitoring (TADM) may be specified.
In conjunction with the Liquid Classes, Hamilton has developed the aforementioned TADM technology. This uses pressure sensors to record and monitor the pressure within the tips during every liquid handling step. TADM can detect short samples, clots or other obstructions to the pipetting process. The process involves pipetting large amounts of samples to obtain pipetting curve data. Then, the user must set guard bands based on this data. If a pressure curve crosses a guard band, that sample is flagged accordingly.
Hamilton has developed an innovative way to use these pressure curves beyond the qualitative sample detection. This innovation is called Anti-Droplet Control (ADC). ADC can keep solvents such as acetone in a large bore 1000uL tip without the formation of droplets.
The STAR also has great deck pieces which are completely modular. Hamilton makes many convenient deckware pieces to fit most consumables routinely used in laboratories today. However, if you have a consumable that does not fit the deck pieces provided by Hamilton, they can machine specialty pieces to fit.
The deck pieces can be fixed, manually loaded, or an Autoloader with barcode reading can be added. The Autoloader is a nice machine that can load all of the deckware. Additionally, the Autoloader can detect tubes and read barcodes in both vertical and horizontal orientations. Other than requiring some tune-up procedures on first install and periodic maintenance, the Autoloader is quite robust and reliable.
After having used the instrument on a daily basis for over 2 years, I can say that the Hamilton MICROLAB STAR IVD Pipettor is a fantastic instrument. I use the STAR as part of an integrated blood screening system. The instrument has been developed to create pools of donated blood. In this application, the STAR pipettes between 1 and 432 samples, using 10mL, 7mL, and 5mL test tubes, 96 well deep (2.2mL) plates, and 2.0mL conical tubes. The TADM feature, although time consuming to optimize, has improved sampling quality. Compared to the competition, it is difficult to find fault. The service and support have been superior. The software is efficient and the consumables are quite good. With all the available accessories, configurations, and sizes it’s easy to say that there is no better robotic pipettor on the market today.
Joshua Weinberger
Senior Systems Engineer
Systems Development