Calibrating Continuous Flow Chips

Continuous Flow (CF) chips must be calibrated whenever you want to use them with reagents that have not already been calibrated for continuous flow use. CF chip calibration determines the amount of fluid dispensed per unit of time. This tutorial will show you how to calibrate the CF chips for a more consistent flow rate, resulting in a more accurate dispense. Here, you can calibrate a new reagent, use the default data for a 1 cP liquid (such as pure water), or even copy any existing calibration data from a similar reagent. The calibration procedure includes inputting some information about your reagent as well as instrument setup and defining the dispense parameters, preparing the tools needed for calibration, and then dispensing the reagent.

 

Required Tools

 

Prerequisites

Continuous Flow Calibration Wizard

 

To calibrate a Continuous Flow chip:

  1. Go to the Tools menu, click Continuous Flow Calibration.

  2. Next to Reagent Name, select the reagent you want to calibrate.

  3. Select the Calibration Type from the following options:

  4. Select the Reagent Viscosity for your reagent. MANTIS CF can support viscosities from 1 to 25 cP.

  5. If you know the density of your reagent, select I know the Reagent Density and type the Density for your reagent in g/L. If you do not have the reagent density value and want to measure it during the calibration process, clear the I know the Reagent Density checkbox, if selected.

  6. Select the Nozzle Size of your chip from the available options, such as 0.1 mm - Red, 0.6 mm - Brown, and so on.

  7. Select the appropriate Bottle Pressure value from the following options: 3, 6, and 10 psi.

    Important: Make sure to select the supported Nozzle Size and Bottle Pressure based on your reagent viscosity to prevent any dripping during dispense. If this warning sign appears next to the Nozzle Size or Bottle Pressure field, hover over it to see the recommended bottle pressure and nozzle size values from MANTIS. You can ignore these warnings and continue the calibration, but the calibration result might not be accurate.

  8. Select the Bottle Size accordingly: Small (100 mL), Medium (100-250 mL), or Large (250-500 mL).

  9. Click Start Calibration to proceed to the following instructions:

  10. Congratulations! You have successfully calibrated the reagent for a CF chip. You can see the results of the calibration displayed in the wizard. Click Finish when you’re done.

    Calibration Is Complete

Important: For the most accurate dispense possible, it is recommended to recalibrate your reagents each time you change between CF chips. To do so, open the Continuous Flow Calibration wizard and select the desired reagent that has previously been calibrated. Select New Calibration as the Calibration Type option, click the Re-calibrate button, then follow steps 9-10 in the procedure above. If you recalibrate a reagent, the previous calibration data will be replaced by the new calibration setup.

 

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