When it comes to your capillary sequencers, we always assume “Green is for go” signaling that everything is up and running smoothly.  You may be looking for the “green light” on your sequencer to ensure you’ve passed the initialization sequence, but it’s just not happening, even after rebooting.  Let’s go through just exactly what you should see.

First and foremost, when checking sequencer functionality, be certain the computer and sequencer are plugged in. Sounds like it doesn’t need to be said, but we’ve seen this issue before.  Also, if the machine has been in “idle” mode for a long period of time, it may have tripped the safety breaker and turned the machine off.  These are two items to check for immediately.

Judging from the number of “Out of Office” replies we are receiving these days, it seems that many of you are enjoying some well-deserved time off.  You will get the same response from me if you email in the next two weeks! Luckily, the amazing SeqGen team is awaiting your call and can help you with any service issue you may be facing. If you are planning an extended absence, don’t forget to also give your sequencer, PCR, or qPCR machine the proper vacation it needs.

Springtime may have come and gone, but it’s never too late to start your spring-cleaning! As a matter of fact, with a little bit of elbow grease and a lot of patience, you can restore your silver block 9700 thermal cycler to pristine condition. This is routine procedure when SeqGen performs preventative maintenance on the thermal cycler, but we are more than happy to share our trade secret! 

A recurring problem that we have seen of late is an error message stating: “Capillary Leak Detected”, but the capillary array is not necessarily due for replacement. If you’re like most people, you want to try everything you can before you order a new one (which could cost you thousands).

We usually see this error in couple different instances.