Hamilton Vantage freezing when mixing

Hello,

I have a question regarding mixing with the Hamilton Vantage. I have noticed that sometimes when I perform high repetition mixing steps with high volume (20-30 mixing cycles with 750µl each repetition using 1000µl tips with the 1000µl channels) that the system freezes/becomes very slow occasionally.
I assume this has something to do with the position of the piston, but I’m not sure.

This started happening recently because I have been working on new methods where 30-60ml of reagents need to mixed.
Can anybody tell me what is going on exactly and the best way is to avoid this freezing/slowing down?

Kind regards,
Ed

There is a timeout timer. I forgot the exact number, but between 3-5 mins. I would break up your mixing into 2 or 3 steps of 10/15 cycles each depending on your mixing speed.

One time I set a 10 cycle, 1mL volume tipmixing step with 0.1uL/s pipetting speed. It looked like the system froze up without error and I had to end process to get out of the loop.

Theoretically, that tipmix would have taken over 5 hours - luckily I didn’t have to wait that long. Worth double checking your variables before looking into advanced issues.

Hey I think this is what’s going on, thanks. I will try and split up the mixing steps into two cycles.

@evwolfson I will check the variables but I’m quite sure it’s what chips-a-hoai mentioned, thanks for the input.

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I’m glad it’s not the variables issue - very humbling when the problem is your own damn fault :sweat_smile: