Best Practices

  • Do take care when affixing barcode labels to your plates.
    • Always put a barcode on your plate. Plates without barcodes will not be processed in the Load Port.
      Empty Plate
    • Barcodes should always be placed on the short side of the plate, away from the A1 location. If you affix the barcode to the wrong side of the plate, the images you see for your drops won’t map to the contents of the experiment design. See the example of the correct barcode placement below.
      Correct Barcodes
    • If you wrap the barcode label around the side or corner of a plate, the barcode scanner will not be able to read the entire barcode.
      Wrong Barcode
    • If you leave an area of the label sticking off of a plate, your plate could stick to objects inside the imager.
      Wrong Barcode 3
  • Do NOT leave tape wrapped around the bottom of a plate. It may cause your images to be out of focus and increase the probability of plate transfer failure.
  • Do take care when using the metal adapters, skirt and shoe.

    Skirt Shoe Adapters

    • The metal adapters should be positioned in the same direction as the barcode.
    • The metal adapters should be rigidly attached to the plate and should lock the plate well.
    • The skirt adapter is designed to accommodate regular SBS plates and Low-Profile plates. The shoe adapter is suitable for CrystalQuick™ Greiner Plates, EasyXtal, and LCP plates.
  • Do follow standard drop position conventions when working on a hanging drop experiment. For example, if you use a two-drop hanging drop plate, your drops should be dispensed from top to bottom.
  • Do contact FORMULATRIX about a month after first using ROCK IMAGER® so that we can review some of your images to ensure you get the best performance from your imager.
  • Do contact us with any questions about anything at any time at support@formulatrix.com.