Transferring to diamond/star shaped 384well plate?

Hi Balazs,

I would suggest the following on setting up the plate,

Reach out to manufacturing and ask them for this plate manufacturing specification/definitions.

Then you need to add this labware into your labware editor. keep in mind that this is not a standard commonly used plate we do not have this kind of plate in our standard defined plates in the labware editor. They are not tested, and we can't guarantee how it will perform. Please use caution when testing it out, probably try a dry run or just water run, before you actually perform with real samples.

Workflow for defining labware

Adding a labware entry

Setting microplate properties

Setting tip and well properties for pipetting the closest we could recommend is to define it as a round geometry plate. 

Regards,

Yevgeniy.

I want to expand a bit on the above point. 

VWorks is designed to make use of the American Nation Standards Institute (ANSI) microplate standards. The labware definition allows specific offsets to be set, but it expects every well to maintain these same offsets for each subsequent row and column. You cannot define different offsets for alternating rows/columns like what is done in the diamond/star plate being referenced here.

For reference, the standard for well spacing of a 384 plate in ANSI includes that each column and row are both 4.5 mm apart and equally spaced from each other, meaning the offset in this diamond patterned plate is not expected. The software can account for a different offset but is not natively designed to handle this type of offset that alternates each row. 

These offsets are applied in the Row-wise well to well and Column-wise well to well parameters mentioned in Setting tip and well properties for pipetting. 

Please see Workflow for defining labware for details about defining labware, including the mention of this standard.

Excerpt:

I could not find any specifications online for this plate to reference so I may be misunderstanding the use case. If the center diamonds are there for spacing and the wells are actually equidistant for well-to-well columns and well-to-well rows then it can be defined this like any other normal plate using the guides posted by Yevgeniy. If these diamonds are offset then the mentions in this post of this not being ANSI standard and needing workaround will apply.  

Nonetheless, there are a few potential, but untested, workarounds you could consider implementing. I will state that these do have a risk of crashing if implemented incorrectly so you would be doing so at your own risk. I highly advise you contact your local Agilent support resource for more focused assistance in implementing one of these if you want to proceed.

This contact can be identified at Contact Us | Agilent after selecting your country in the dropdown menu. 

One potential workaround: Trick the software by defining the plate as a 1536 plate instead of a 384 plate. I will note that this option is optimal for a system using a 96ST head rather than a 96LT head. The latter use case will give compiler errors that 1536 wells are too narrow for 96LT tips. I will recommend contacting local application support resources if a 96LT head is being used, as that likely will require implementation of a different kind of workaround.

Next, inform VWorks that the well-to-well parameters that I mentioned earlier are actually half their real offset (measuring these offsets with respect to the microplates teachpoint to A1 and the center of each well). This well to well parameter likely should be 2.25mm, considering the default for 384 plates is usually 4.5mm, but the plate should be measured to verify accuracy of this parameter.  

After doing so, quadrant one would be represented by the new A1 position, quadrant 2 as A3, Quadrant 3 as B2, and Quadrant 4 as B4. The protocol must never select A2, A4, B1, or B3 as it will crash between wells if it attempts to pipette at these locations with this modified offset. This also limits some functionality of the software, such as selecting quadrants in a loop, but should let the pipette head position accurately for each pipetting step if each task's wellselection parameter is carefully selected or scripted. 

This suggestion would redefine the plate to have well positions similar to the below:

Blue A1,2,3,4
Red B1,2,3,4

I want to expand a bit on the above point. 

VWorks is designed to make use of the American Nation Standards Institute (ANSI) microplate standards. The labware definition allows specific offsets to be set, but it expects every well to maintain these same offsets for each subsequent row and column. You cannot define different offsets for alternating rows/columns like what is done in the diamond/star plate being referenced here.

For reference, the standard for well spacing of a 384 plate in ANSI includes that each column and row are both 4.5 mm apart and equally spaced from each other, meaning the offset in this diamond patterned plate is not expected. The software can account for a different offset but is not natively designed to handle this type of offset that alternates each row. 

These offsets are applied in the Row-wise well to well and Column-wise well to well parameters mentioned in Setting tip and well properties for pipetting. 

Please see Workflow for defining labware for details about defining labware, including the mention of this standard.

Excerpt:

I could not find any specifications online for this plate to reference so I may be misunderstanding the use case. If the center diamonds are there for spacing and the wells are actually equidistant for well-to-well columns and well-to-well rows then it can be defined this like any other normal plate using the guides posted by Yevgeniy. If these diamonds are offset then the mentions in this post of this not being ANSI standard and needing workaround will apply.  

Nonetheless, there are a few potential, but untested, workarounds you could consider implementing. I will state that these do have a risk of crashing if implemented incorrectly so you would be doing so at your own risk. I highly advise you contact your local Agilent support resource for more focused assistance in implementing one of these if you want to proceed.

This contact can be identified at Contact Us | Agilent after selecting your country in the dropdown menu. 

One potential workaround: Trick the software by defining the plate as a 1536 plate instead of a 384 plate. I will note that this option is optimal for a system using a 96ST head rather than a 96LT head. The latter use case will give compiler errors that 1536 wells are too narrow for 96LT tips. I will recommend contacting local application support resources if a 96LT head is being used, as that likely will require implementation of a different kind of workaround.

Next, inform VWorks that the well-to-well parameters that I mentioned earlier are actually half their real offset (measuring these offsets with respect to the microplates teachpoint to A1 and the center of each well). This well to well parameter likely should be 2.25mm, considering the default for 384 plates is usually 4.5mm, but the plate should be measured to verify accuracy of this parameter.  

After doing so, quadrant one would be represented by the new A1 position, quadrant 2 as A3, Quadrant 3 as B2, and Quadrant 4 as B4. The protocol must never select A2, A4, B1, or B3 as it will crash between wells if it attempts to pipette at these locations with this modified offset. This also limits some functionality of the software, such as selecting quadrants in a loop, but should let the pipette head position accurately for each pipetting step if each task's wellselection parameter is carefully selected or scripted. 

This suggestion would redefine the plate to have well positions similar to the below:

Blue A1,2,3,4
Red B1,2,3,4