Ever had one of those days? After sitting at your desk for 12 hours, you still cannot seem to clear out the day’s “To Do” list. This entire week was one of “those” days for me. I’ve even received three friend requests, allegedly from me, to friend myself! I just want to say that we at SeqGen consider ALL of you our friends, but please do NOT accept any “friend” requests from SeqGen or me personally. Somehow one of your emails has been hacked and those cyber crooks are using SeqGen’s and my name maliciously. Rest assured that the hosting service has received the appropriate “hate” mail from us. Please check the email sender very carefully and never click on any suspicious links – even from SeqGen!
In spite of all that is going on this week around SeqGen, I’ve not, personally, had to deal with the spatial calibrations pictured above. That may have sent me over the edge… Unfortunately, some of our Sanger customers have had to start out their day that way. Yikes! Fortunately, they do not have to finish it that way and can call on us for assistance.
Spatial calibrations are actually images collected by the data collection software that show each capillary’s position based upon its signal emitted and define where it is detected by the CCD camera. They are indicative of individual capillary alignment and the signal intensity of each capillary.
So what if you come in one morning and your sequencer has flat lined? If you are unfortunate enough to see the spatial calibration above, this may indicate that your CCD camera is failing or that your laser is not working properly. Please call SeqGen immediately and we can discuss your options. For full contract customers we will most likely be dispatching a service engineer. Non-contract customers – you may be looking at a fairly large repair bill.
Lower intensity than expected, as pictured above, or uneven intensity in your spatial calibration are also signs that there are problems at hand. It may be time for an optical alignment or PM. Please give us a call or send over an email for troubleshooting, as there are many reasons you could be seeing this. The fix may be as simple as washing your capillary array. If you have not done so already, please download our wash procedure using the link below.
I’d like to thank all of our loyal readers and apologize if the recent scourge by hackers has caused you any difficulties. As always, call or send us a note if we can be of assistance.
Sincerely,