JPS5940257A - Reaction tube exchange apparatus in biochemical automatic analytical apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To shorten a measuring treatment time to a large extent, by constituting the titled apparatus so as to provide such a mechanism that one or reaction tubes each moving through each transfer passage is simultaneously held and revolved and the reaction tube withdrawn from one transfer passage is replaced with the other transfer passage. CONSTITUTION:A reaction tube exchange apparatus L is constituted from such a mechanism that, when the reaction tube 1 held by a feed apparatus H is intermittently revolved to a predetermined position, the reaction tube 11 and the reaction tube 11' held by a measuring turret K at a position confronted to said reaction tube 11 are simultaneously lifted to be revolved 180 deg. and the reaction tube 11' can be replaced with the position where the reaction tube 11 of the feed apparatus H is withdrawn while the reaction tube 11 can be replaced with the position where the reaction tube 11' of the measuring turret K is withdrawn. By this constitution, because positional determination can be certainly performed by simple constitution without stopping the transfer operation of the reaction tube, a measuring treatment time is shortened to a large extent.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a reaction tube exchange device in an automatic biochemical analyzer.

As shown in FIG. 1, a method for transferring reaction tubes in an automatic biochemical analyzer is to hold a plurality of reaction tubes 1 on an endless belt-like transfer path 2, and to
is sequentially moved intermittently, and during the movement, the sample is sequentially dispensed into the reaction tube 1 at a predetermined position A, and then at a predetermined position B, all types of reagents or two or more types of reagents corresponding to the measurement items are dispensed. to cause a chemical reaction, then optically measure the coloring state of the sample at a predetermined position C to analyze the components in the sample, and then discharge the sample etc. in the reaction tube 1 at a predetermined position and return it to the reaction tube. One possible method is to clean the inside of the tank.

However, in this method of transferring the reaction tube 1,
Since the plurality of reaction tubes 1 must be held by a flexible endless chain, it is extremely difficult to maintain the same positioning of the reaction tubes in the transfer path as the chain feeding accuracy. The problem was that

The present invention was devised in view of the current situation, and its purpose is to provide a reaction tube in a biochemical automatic analyzer with a simple configuration, which allows the reaction tube to be easily and smoothly positioned in the transfer path. The aim is to provide a replacement device.

In order to achieve all of these objects, the present invention provides a reaction tube exchange device for an automatic biochemical analyzer, in which a plurality of transfer paths for reaction tubes containing specimens and reagents are formed independently. It is constructed so that the transfer path and one of the moving reaction tubes can be held and rotated at the same time at an arbitrary position, and the reaction tube taken out from the negative transfer path can be replaced with the other transfer path. .

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail based on embodiments shown in the accompanying drawings.

As shown in FIG. 2, the automatic biochemical analyzer Naru 1
0 containers, 1 container containing a comparison sample, and 1
One container is arranged. ) a plurality of sample cassettes F held by the sample cassettes F; a pipette device G for aspirating a predetermined amount of the sample in the container 10 held by the sample cassette F at a predetermined position and dispensing it into the reaction tube 11; A turret-shaped feeding device H, which is a first reaction tube transfer path that holds a plurality of reaction tubes 11, is arranged concentrically with a feeding device A first reagent device J comprising a plurality of reagent vessels (1) containing corresponding reagents removably mounted on a turret plate 12, into which a predetermined amount of the sample and a predetermined amount/amount of reagent are injected. Reaction tube 11
from the turret-like feeding device H that intermittently and sequentially transfers the reaction tubes 11 to the measurement turret K, which is the second transfer path of the reaction tube 11;
- an optical device M for colorimetrically measuring the specimen etc. in the reaction tube 11 held in the reaction tube 11; a signal processing device N for displaying and storing data measured by the optical device M; - the reaction tube after the above measurement work has been completed; 11 and a cleaning device 0 for cleaning the cleaning device 11.

In addition, in the same figure, the symbol P indicates the feeding device H and the measuring turret (K).
Q is a stirring device, and R is a first drive device disposed on the side of the measurement turret.
A second reagent device having the same configuration as reagent device T is shown.

Then, the reaction tube exchange device 7 intermittently moves the reaction tube 11 held by the feeding device H to a predetermined position, and then transfers the reaction tube 11 to a measurement turret (K) at a position facing the reaction tube 11. At the same time, the held reaction tube 11' is lifted up and rotated 180 degrees, and the reaction tube 11 of the feeding device H is replaced with the reaction tube 11' in the position where it was taken out. The blade is replaced in the position where it was pulled out.

That is, as shown in FIG. 3, the reaction tube exchange device (1) includes a support arm 21 having picking arm attachments at both ends, and a lifting rod 22 fixed to the center of the support arm 21. A gear n fixed to the outer layer of the lower end of the lifting rod 22, a drive device 24 that meshes with the gear n and rotates the lifting rod 22 in a fixed direction, and an eccentric that comes into contact with the lower end of the lifting rod 22. It is composed of a cam 3 and a motor 26 that rotationally drives the eccentric cam 25.

Therefore, the lifting rod η is lowered to the lowest position at the shortest radius part a of the eccentric cam 5, and raised to the highest position at the longest radius part of the eccentric cam 3, and is connected to the gear 27 of the drive device 24. The rotation of the lifting rod η is controlled by the driving force of the driving device 24 until the support arm 21 rotates 1800 times. The picking arm 20 is supported so that its tip expands and narrows with the bin 28 as a fulcrum, and the lifting rod 22 is set to the lowest position via a known timing mechanism (not shown). and reaction tube 11
.

In this embodiment, since the reaction tube exchange device If is configured as above, the transfer path of the reaction tube 11 can be formed into two separate paths in the form of a turret, and the positioning of the reaction tube 11 is also accurate, so that many mechanical operations can be performed. It is possible to reliably operate each device in automatic biochemical analysis, which requires the transfer of the reaction tubes 1.1 and 11' in close association with each other. Since this can be carried out during the transfer of a series of reaction tubes 11 without stopping the operation of the
Since the configuration is simple, there are few failures and maintenance is easy.

In the above embodiment, the elevating rod 2 of the reaction tube exchange device
Although the explanation has been given taking as an example the case where the elevation control is performed using No. 2 and the eccentric cam 25, the present invention is not limited to this, and may be configured to be performed using an actuator, for example.

Since the present invention includes the above configuration, even if the reaction tube transfer path in an automatic biochemical analyzer is separated into multiple paths, the reaction tube can be reliably positioned with a simple configuration without stopping the reaction tube transfer operation. Therefore, the continuous measurement processing performance of the specimen can be significantly improved.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing a reaction tube transfer method in a conventional biochemical automatic analyzer, and FIG. 2 schematically shows the configuration of a biochemical automatic analyzer equipped with a reaction tube exchange device according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram schematically showing the configuration of a reaction tube exchange device. X...Biochemical automatic analyzer L...Reaction tube exchange device H...Feeding device (first transfer path) K...Measurement turret (second transfer path) i, ii, i
i'・・・Reaction tube

Claims (1)

[Claims] A reaction tube exchange device for an automatic biochemical analyzer, in which a plurality of transfer paths for reaction tubes containing specimens and reagents are formed independently, and the reaction tube exchange device moves through each transfer path. An automatic biochemical analyzer characterized in that one of the reaction tubes is simultaneously held at an arbitrary position and rotated, and a reaction tube extracted from a - transfer path is replaced in another transfer path. Reaction tube exchange device.