This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. As a part of the continuing upgrade of our beamlines, the ALS robot was installed at 8BM. After analyzing all the available robots in the market, the ALS robot was chosen based on its simplicity, cost, proven performance and a community of users, located at synchrotrons in the U.S., committed to the development of this robot. The robot was installed in November 2005 after successfully passing an acceptance criteria of 99% successful mounts at liquid nitrogen temperatures. This demonstration was conducted in conjunction with the developers at the Engineering division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). During the last four months, the robot was tested extensively at liquid nitrogen temperature by mounting/dismounting the sample pins continuously. So far it has mounted and dismounted pins close to 2000 times with an error rate of about 1%. The dewar can accommodate 64 samples with 16 samples in four pucks. The testing was done by picking the pins from all the four pucks. There was minimum icing of the dewar during the testing. In March 2006, actual testing using lysozyme crystals was carried out successfully. At the present time the robot is controlled by LBNL supplied software. This controls crystal mounting and dismounting. The crystal centering using Click and Center protocol and data collection are carried out through Blu-Ice software. Integration of the two programs is planned for the near future. Integration of the two programs is planned for the near future.
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