You told us that PIXL needed to:
- Be easy to use by anybody in the lab
- Adapt to your protocol
- Trace and export every plate, colony and parameter
The dawn of precision colony picking.
PIXL is changing the game for colony picking precision, sterility, and ease-of-use.
An ultra-reliable and super-easy-to-use microbial colony picker. It automates imaging, colony recognition, colony selection, and picking; from Petri dishes to multiwell plates.
PIXL uses the freshly-cut end of a sterile PickupLine™ to transfer microbial colonies. It eliminates the requirement for washing cycles and the associated chance of contamination.
PIXL is developed in collaboration with leading synthetic biology incubators, SynCTI and SynbiCITE, and industrial partners SynthACE and Ginkgo Bioworks. All of whom are unhappy with existing colony picking options. We listened. We collaborated. We welcome: PIXL.
Each user has their own passworded profile. PIXL remembers last used settings; stores templates; and logs user actions and parameters.
Petri or PlusPlate. Pick from the whole plate or define sectors of interest.
Use white, or one of 5 other fluorescent channels.
Filter based on: size, intensity, colour or circularity. Pick them all, or choose a sorted, or randomised subset.
Select number of replicates; on any density, in any pattern, agar or liquid.
Review your routine, estimated time and number of plates required, then press go and walk away.
Export your routine, colony information and parameters as a CSV file.
Capture high-resolution colony images using PIXL’s scientific grade, colour camera.
Filter colonies by: size, fluorescent intensity, colour, circularity, proximity or brightness.
Pick every single colony on the plate, or choose a sorted, sectored or randomised subset.
Pin onto agar or into liquid, on 90mm and 150mm Petri Dishes, rectangular PlusPlates and deep or shallow multiwell plates.
Sustain close to 100% picking accuracy with precision agar surface detection on every pick.
Uneven agar surfaces? Not an issue. PIXL easily copes with agar height variations from plate to plate, automatically.
Pick every colony on your plate. No more missed or damaged colonies.
The motors are accurate to 50 microns, select even the smallest hits.
Picking profiles are adjustable to optimise for the most tenacious colonies: scoop, dither, vibrate or dab!
Over 30,000 sterile, disposable tips in a single, low-cost PickupLine™.
Contact pressure regulation on every pick prevents colony splashing and cross contamination, a common problem with picking automation.
PickupLine™ eliminates the requirement for washing cycles and the associated chance of contamination.
6-channel, flat-field SpectraStar™ incident illumination.
Excite fluorescent markers with Blue, Cyan, Green, 2 intensities of UV and white light.
PIXL also accepts standard 50mm emission filters.
Detection of wtGFP, sfGFP, mCherry, tagBFP and Venus markers.
Anybody can learn to PIXL!
The touch-screen interface will guide you step-by-step and get you picking the right colonies with ease.
90% of the functionality can be learnt in as little as 10 minutes, without instruction.
We spend a lot of time with our collaborators to make sure that our user interface thinks like you do.
Trace everything with passworded user profiles
PIXL remembers last used settings; stores templates; and logs user actions and parameters automatically.
Export your routine, colony information and parameters as a CSV file.
Up to 45 hours of walkaway automation.
PIXL picks approximately 700 colonies per hour.
Singer Instruments have over thirty years of precision microbial cell and colony picking experience. Whether colony picking from high-density E. coli arrays, or tetrad dissection with single yeast spores, Singer Instruments are trusted by thousands of labs worldwide. We have learnt a lot about colony picking over the years, and have used this experience to develop PickupLine™.
PickupLine™ is a 1mmø bespoke polymer extrusion, available in sterile 200m reels. Load a single reel into PIXL to form more than 30,000 sterile, disposable tips. Its cutting-characteristics allow PIXL’s precision blade to produce a coarse tip, perfect for picking bacteria and fungal colonies.
Discounts are available when ordering multiple reels.
PIXL is so reliable because it’s so simple!
Because our software engineers understand your biology! We spend a lot of time with our collaborators to make sure that our user interface thinks like you do.
PIXL accepts 90mm and 150mm Petri dishes, as well as Singer PlusPlates and most varieties of rectangular PlusPlates.
PIXL pins onto agar or into liquid, on SBS-format rectangular plates, including 96 and 384 multiwell plates, both shallow and deep.
PIXL will pick colonies at a rate of approximately 700 per hour, continuously, and for over 45 hours before a PickupLine™ change is required. And remember: there are no washing cycles to slow it down. When we say 700 an hour, we mean 700 an hour!
PIXL was designed with this in mind. We are currently working with integration partners to accommodate robotic arms, stackers and hotels. Contact us to find out more.
No. The interface was designed so that anybody in the lab can reliably colony pick within a few minutes, simply by following the onscreen step-by-step process.
PIXL uses specially developed Pinpoint™ picking technology for a step-change in reliability and sterility. Pinpoint™ uses the freshly-cut end of a sterile PickupLine™ to transfer microbial colonies. It’s consumable, but at a fraction of the cost of traditional pin tips.
PickupLinesTM are available in 200m spools. The cost equates to approximately 1c per tip.
Yes, totally! Agar is rarely flat. It’s one of the biggest challenges in colony picking automation. By design, PinpointTM picking technology morphs to differences in agar height and carefully regulates the contact pressure. It happily maintains picking accuracy and repeatability across uneven agar surfaces and easily copes with agar height variations from plate to plate. Oh, and all of this is completely automated!
PIXL will quantify and allow selection for wtGFP, sfGFP, mCherry, tagBFP and Venus as standard.
Repeatable and reliable. Specially engineered for a guaranteed minimum lifespan of 400,000 cleaves of your PickupLine™.
Barcode reader for Singer ROTOR and PIXL colony pickers.
For those who are super-cautious, but want to maximise PIXL’s uptime: send one nozzle for autoclaving and use this spare.
PIX-001
L: 718mm x W: 630mm x H: 810mm
70 kg
240v @ 10AMPs (2400w)
1x White Channel & 5x Fluorescence Channels
1-Year
Singer Instruments has a long-standing reputation for fantastic service and support, for which we are very proud. Our motto, ‘a responsibility to science’, extends to our service and support whereby our primary motivation is to eliminate, or at least minimise, your experimental downtime. Singer products are designed for reliability, longevity, speed, and ease-of-use. Singer service packages augment these design criteria by increasing life-expectancy and increasing device reliability with preventative and predictive maintenance. Should any reactive maintenance be called upon, our time, cost and carbon efficient support should get you up and running in the shortest time possible.
Singer Instruments’ products are fully guaranteed against faulty materials or workmanship for one year from the date of commissioning. Should the product be controlled by a computer, the guarantee necessitates internet connectivity for remote access* availability.
Singer Support is an excellent and cost effective service that gives you unlimited access to Singer technical experts by phone, email, VOIP or remote access. All requests are entered into the Singer ticketing system that allow both you and Singer Instruments to log, track and monitor any reported issues from initial contact through to resolution. While we aim to respond to all queries within 24 hours, our average response times are far less.
Singer Support packages are extendable and can be bought in 1, 3 or 5 year packages with discounts applied for the 3 and 5 year packages. There are 2 levels of cover offered – Support and Support Plus.
*remote access – a highly secure method of allowing a Singer Instruments engineer access to your machine via an Internet connection.
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