Pros/cons of Tecan Fluent vs Hamilton STAR

SciRobotics Scirobotics Pickolo can be used for picking on Tecan instruments (never used so I can’t vouch for the hardware, but @Shaik can probably answer some questions for you!)

Hamilton also offers the EasyPick, which @NickHealy_Hamilton wrote a great summary about!

If you’re doing colony picking on a liquid handler, just be aware that the consumable burn can get pretty crazy pretty fast. This might make Tecan a slightly more attractive option due to cheaper 3rd party tips, but an additional dedicated picking instrument might make more sense once you sit down and do the math (check out this thread for some great responses I got when I asked this question.)

As far as support, I’ve had great experience with the Hamilton folks (many of whom are very active here!) and so so experience with Tecan folks, but this will probably depend a lot on your region.

If you’ve already got Hamilton experience and like what you’ve seen, my personal opinion is that you’d probably be best served sticking with that since you’ve already conquered the learning curve. You can achieve similar results and get way under the hood with both, but the strategies are different and not necessarily transferrable. As far as Tecans, I’ve only worked with EVOs, but I know there’s a wealth of Fluent knowledge here, I’ve seen posts from @luisvillaautomata @MikeMueller and @smohler, so they might be able to chime in!

4 Likes