If you’ve been following our blog, you know that regular maintenance is key to the health of your machines. We all know that our sequencers are made up of a bunch of smaller parts. We also know that eventually some of these parts wear out and it’s time to dig into the piggy bank to cover the new pieces if you do not enjoy Platinum coverage with SeqGen for your capillary electrophoresis machines.

Unfortunately, we haven’t found a way to beat Father Time when it comes to wear and tear on certain parts, but there are some things you can do to hold him off.

If your lab is like ours, you know that a week can come and go in the blink of an eye! You’re just minding your own business, running samples, and all of a sudden another week can be checked off the calendar. This isn’t a bad thing; you know the saying—time flies when you’re having fun! But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be taking care of your equipment in the meantime.

At the start of every week, there are a few procedures to perform to make sure that your machine is running at peak performance. Before you dive headfirst into your samples, it’s best to make sure you are starting with a clean slate, otherwise your machine could end up looking like this.

When we last left our troubled ABI 3730 user a week ago, she was suffering from blue background haze and had tried SeqGen’s previously mentioned tips to no avail. At this point we look for other reasons for the blue haze in her results.

As you may remember, the buffer, or in most cases the buffer make-up water, can cause a blue haze in your electropherograms. If you're having this problem, you need to check and see if there is any leak in the system.This is to make sure the buffer is not getting pulled into the pump piston and accidently passing into the capillary.

They say that it’s all about the little things in life that make a big difference. Although “they” were probably referring to things like compliments or ice cream cones. Instead, we’re referring to changing out the polymer for your 310, 3100, 3130 and 3730 machines. 

Changing out your polymer might not be glamorous, but it is an imperative part of making sure you’re gathering accurate data. If you’ve been wondering how often you should change out your polymer, don’t worry, we get that question a lot

Protecting your sequencer or qPCR is no laughing matter. For many labs, the smallest problem can cause days of downtime. Although it is impossible to avoid all of these issues, a coverage plan with SeqGen will minimize downtime so you can get back to your samples.

One of the most common complaints we hear from our customers is they are seeing less than optimal results in their sequencing data. After making sure your machine is working properly, we often come to the conclusion that the issue is related to the capillary array.

Most of the time, the problem is simply a dirty capillary array. Over time, dried and degraded polymer will accumulate on the inner walls of your capillary array. This can adversely affect the resolution during sample runs and cause your results to suffer. Some common symptoms of a failing array are:

• Loss of resolution
• Broadening or “fat” peaks
• Delayed DNA peaks
• Blue or yellow bands in some, but not all of the capillaries
• One or two capillaries showing no peaks at all

Ok, so I know it’s not Spring just yet. I was quickly reminded of this fact this morning as my teeth were chattering while I brushed the snow off my car. But, warm weather is just around the corner and with it are many spring-cleaning projects.

The weather may still be cold, but now is a great time to do some cleaning around the lab. Your sequencer requires a good tune-up every year to make sure it is working properly. So to help guide you through this cleanup, we’ve listed some of the most common problems you may run into.