Cytomat SkyLine

The Thermo Scientific Cytomat SkyLine is a high-capacity sequential plate store built for high-throughput and ultra-high-throughput screening. It is a different animal from the random-access Cytomat stores Revolution drives today — the Cytomat 2, Cytomat 10C, Cytomat 24 (PH) and Cytomat 6000: 14 stackers of labware, presented one plate at a time, with a sequencing and centering mechanism whose job is to separate a plate from its stack and hand it to a gripper accurately enough that lids and seals survive the trip.

Revolution does not currently drive the SkyLine from a schedule. There is a partial driver in the tree — serial communications, a 14-stack model, stack configuration, inventory scanning and error reporting all work — but the plate load and unload operations are not enabled, and the device is not published as a Revolution device. The detail is in Supported methods below. If you need a SkyLine in a Revolution system, get in touch: the groundwork exists, so this is a commissioning job rather than a driver written from scratch.

At a glance

Type	High-capacity sequential plate storage and delivery
Stackers	14
Capacity	Up to 728 microplates
Plate access	Under 12 seconds
Centering accuracy	±0.3 mm
Interface	RS232 or Ethernet, using the standard Cytomat command set
Revolution control	Partial — no plate movement from a schedule today

Specifications

Thermo Fisher publish the following.

Stackers	14, holding any combination of stacks of different plate types, lids and tip boxes
Centering accuracy	±0.3 mm, which is what supports lidding of plates and backloading after assay set-up
Labware	Shallow-well plates, 96- and 384- through 1536-well plates, lids, tip boxes, sealed plates
Stack sensing	Stacker sensors calculate how many plates are in a stacker
Status indication	LED indicators show busy or idle, and warn on error
Catalogue configuration	Cytomat SkyLine 14 Stacker SKL 645, offered as stacker only, or with barcode reader, plate lift, or both

Two published facts shape how a SkyLine fits into a cell.

It is sequential, not random access. Thermo describe it as sequential storage and delivery: you take the next plate off a stack. A schedule that assumes it can ask for one named plate out of 728, the way it would from a random-access Cytomat, is designing against the wrong machine.

It takes plates back. Thermo call the ability to receive processed labware back into a stacker exclusive to the SkyLine among sequential stackers — a plate can be taken, sealed and returned, and labware with lids or seals can then sit in the stacker for ambient storage and incubation. That removes a separate downstream store from the layout.

Options

• Plate lift, giving up to 150 mm of transfer-position range, so the SkyLine can sit under the workbench or platform where space is tight
• Barcode reader, 1D or 2D, for inventory management
• Perspex housing, with door lock and key or a door switch, for use outside an enclosed platform

Supported methods

Two operations are available from a schedule:

• Show error register — report the unit’s active errors back into the run
• Move to robot nest teach position — raise the nest and prepare for a robot place, which is the position a robot’s nest is taught against

That is the whole schedulable surface, and it is deliberately named as such: plate load and unload are not enabled. The driver contains the load and unload implementations, addressing a stacker number from 1 to 14, but they are commented out and therefore not offered as operations. Nor does the SkyLine carry a Revolution device declaration, so it does not appear in the device catalogue for a schedule to reference.

What is implemented behind that surface, and would be the starting point for finishing the job, is substantial: serial communications against the Cytomat command set, a 14-stack plate-stack model, per-stack configuration, a maximum stack height (600 mm by default), self-inventory scanning, object storage and retrieval, and error-register decoding.

Integration

Prerequisites

• The unit must be cabled to the Revolution host and its serial port settings known. The driver connects over a serial port; Thermo’s Ethernet option is not the path Revolution uses.
• The turntable must be aligned and the unit initialised, per Thermo’s operating instructions, before anything else.
• Stack configuration must match the physical unit, including the plate dimensions actually in use — Thermo’s own procedure asks for a plate count across the stackers so plate batches are measured correctly.
• The robot’s nest position must be taught against the unit’s transfer position; move to robot nest teach position is the operation that puts the SkyLine where that is done.

Device configuration

Property	Purpose
Stack Config	Layout of the unit’s 14 stacks, edited through the stacks editor
ComPortSettings	Serial port and line settings
MaxStackHeight	Tallest stack the unit will accept, defaulting to 600 mm

If you need more of this instrument driven from a schedule, get in touch — the driver is extended on demand.