Classifications

• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B01—PHYSICAL OR CHEMICAL PROCESSES OR APPARATUS IN GENERAL
  • B01L—CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL LABORATORY APPARATUS FOR GENERAL USE
  • B01L3/00—Containers or dishes for laboratory use, e.g. laboratory glassware; Droppers
  • B01L3/02—Burettes; Pipettes
  • B01L3/021—Pipettes, i.e. with only one conduit for withdrawing and redistributing liquids
  • B01L3/0217—Pipettes, i.e. with only one conduit for withdrawing and redistributing liquids of the plunger pump type
  • B01L3/0224—Pipettes, i.e. with only one conduit for withdrawing and redistributing liquids of the plunger pump type having mechanical means to set stroke length, e.g. movable stops
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B01—PHYSICAL OR CHEMICAL PROCESSES OR APPARATUS IN GENERAL
  • B01L—CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL LABORATORY APPARATUS FOR GENERAL USE
  • B01L3/00—Containers or dishes for laboratory use, e.g. laboratory glassware; Droppers
  • B01L3/02—Burettes; Pipettes
  • B01L3/021—Pipettes, i.e. with only one conduit for withdrawing and redistributing liquids
  • B01L3/0217—Pipettes, i.e. with only one conduit for withdrawing and redistributing liquids of the plunger pump type
  • B01L3/0227—Details of motor drive means
• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B01—PHYSICAL OR CHEMICAL PROCESSES OR APPARATUS IN GENERAL
  • B01L—CHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL LABORATORY APPARATUS FOR GENERAL USE
  • B01L3/00—Containers or dishes for laboratory use, e.g. laboratory glassware; Droppers
  • B01L3/02—Burettes; Pipettes
  • B01L3/0275—Interchangeable or disposable dispensing tips
  • B01L3/0279—Interchangeable or disposable dispensing tips co-operating with positive ejection means
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES OR SPEECH SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
  • G10L15/00—Speech recognition
  • G10L15/26—Speech to text systems

Definitions

• Pipetting systems are widely utilized in laboratories and hospitals for withdrawing and dispensing relatively small, predetermined quantities of liquids from one location to another, such as between test tubes, microplates and other liquid receptacles.
• Portable, or hand-held, pipettors are one type of pipetting system.
• Handheld pipettors generally include a housing, a cylinder including two cylinder ends, with one end positioned within the housing and the other end extending from the housing to form a pipettor tip holder, a piston that moves within the cylinder to withdraw liquid from a supply receptacle and dispense the liquid to a receiving receptacle, and a plunger that drives the piston.
• a disposable pipettor tip is commonly attached to the end of the tip holder to retain the liquid to be transferred. This tip can be removed from the tip holder, disposed of, and replaced with a new tip.
• These hand-held pipettors may be configured to transfer liquids by automated or manual actuation of the pipettor.
• Automatically operated hand-held pipettors generally include a motor for actuating the plunger to move the piston within the pipettor cylinder for liquid transfer.
• Manually operated hand-held pipettors require the pipettor user to apply force to the plunger head, usually with a thumb or a finger, to actuate the piston.
• Hand-held pipettors may be designed as fixed volume pipettors, where only one predetermined liquid volume is withdrawn and dispensed, or as adjustable pipettors, where the user may set a desired volume to be dispensed within a given volume range.
• Stop features located within a pipettor determine the distance that a piston will travel, also known as the stroke.
• the stroke corresponds to the volume of liquid to be withdrawn and dispensed.
• Hand-held pipettors commonly include two stops to establish the limits of the stroke. For purposes of the foregoing description, these two stops will be referred to as a front stop and a rear stop.
• the front stop is the stop closest to the tip holder and the rear stop is the stop closest to the plunger head, or in a manual pipettor, the end of the plunger that is manually actuated by a pipettor user.
• the stops in a fixed volume pipettor are fixed, and the piston travels the same stroke during each complete actuation of the plunger.
• at least one of the stops is movable to adjust the stroke length of the piston, and thus the volume to be withdrawn and dispensed.
• a hand-held pipettor comprises a housing including a front stop and a rear stop, a cylinder, a piston that moves within the cylinder to draw and expel liquid, and a plunger that moves the piston, the rear stop being movable by a motor to adjust the volume of liquid to be aspirated and dispensed by the pipettor.
• the pipettor includes a voice recognition system that coacts with a central processing unit to translate verbal commands for volume settings into electronic signals that control the motor moving the rear stop.
• a hand-held pipettor for dispensing specific liquid volumes comprises a cylinder having one end defining a tip holder that accepts a disposable pipettor tip, a piston that moves within the cylinder to withdraw and dispense liquid, and a manually actuated plunger that moves the piston to at least one point of resistance, the housing containing a tactile blow-out mechanism that facilitates manual expelling of a remnant liquid in the pipettor tip following the dispensing of specified liquid volumes.
• the blow-out mechanism requires the pipettor user to apply a force to the plunger through a first point of resistance to a second point of resistance to expel remnant liquid from the pipettor tip.
• a hand-held pipettor for pipetting applications comprises a cylinder having and end configured and arranged to accept a disposable pipettor tip, a piston that moves within the cylinder to withdraw and dispense liquid, a plunger that moves the piston, and a manually actuatable tip ejector assembly configured and arranged to dislodge the pipettor tip for disposal following a pipetting application.
• Figure 1 is a vertical sectional view taken through a manual hand-held pipettor in accordance with the present invention
• Figure 2 is a horizontal sectional view on an enlarged scale taken along line 2-2 of Figure 1;
• Figure 3 is an enlarged view of a portion of Figure 1;
• Figure 4 is a schematic diagram of the voice recognition system.
• a pipettor in accordance with the present invention is generally indicated at 10 in Figure 1.
• the pipettor includes a housing 12 with an axially projecting cylinder 14.
• Cylinder 14 has a tapered distal end defining a pipettor tip holder 16.
• a pipettor tip 0 18 is removably secured by friction to the tip holder 16.
• the opposite end of the cylinder has an enlarged head 20 with an internal ledge 22 on which is seated an O-ring
• a sleeve 28 has an apertured lower end 30 received in the cylinder head 20.
• the sleeve 28 has an intermediate interior shoulder
• a front stop collar 36 is biased 5 upwardly against the internal shoulder 32 by a spring 38.
• a piston 40 in the cylinder head 20 projects downwardly through the seal 26.
• the piston is biased upwardly against the lower end of a plunger 42 by a main spring
• Plunger 42 extends upwardly through the apertured lower end 30 of sleeve 28, and through the front stop collar 36 and a tubular externally threaded screw 46, with its 0 upper end projecting from the top of the housing 12 and into an axially depressable cap
• An enlarged intermediate section 58 of the plunger 42 defines upper and lower shoulders 52 and 54. Shoulder 52 is biased against the lower end of the screw 46 by the force of the main spring 44 acting on the piston 40. The lower screw end thus 5 serves as a rear stop.
• the upper end of the screw 46 is provided with external ribs 56 slidably received in internal grooves 58 in a rotatable drive collar 60.
• An external gear 62 on the drive collar 60 meshes with a drive pinion 64 on the output shaft of a motor 66. 0 Actuation of motor 66 will cause the drive collar 60 to rotate, and the mechanical interengagement of the ribs 56 and grooves 58 will result in a corresponding rotation being imparted to the screw 46.
• the setting of the rear stop will limit the extent to which the piston 40 can be retracted from the tubular portion of the cylinder 14, which in turn will control the volume of liquid that can be drawn into the pipettor tip 18 during aspiration.
• the pipettor includes a tip ejector assembly generally indicated at 68 for removing a pipettor tip 18 from the pipettor tip holder 16.
• the tip ejector assembly 68 includes a tip ejector actuator 70, a tip ejector shaft 72, a tip ejector sleeve 73 movable with the tip ejector shaft, and a lock collar 74.
• the lock collar allows one way movement of the tip ejector shaft 72 and sleeve 73 in the direction of arrow A in Figure 3, but does not allow movement of these components in the opposite direction, the direction of arrow B, when the lock collar is oriented in its locking position, as illustrated.
• the tip ejector sleeve 73 is pushed upwardly in the direction of arrow A.
• the tip ejector shaft 72 will also move up a distance equal to the distance traveled by the tip ejector sleeve due to the fixed connection therebetween.
• the lock collar 74 will allow movement of the tip ejector shaft 72 in the direction of arrow A without resisting movement.
• the tip ejector shaft 72 will be prevented from moving in direction B toward the disposable tip 18 by the locking action of the lock collar 74.
• a spring 76 is positioned to bias the lock collar into an angled, or locking position.
• the spring 76 keeps the tip ejector shaft 72 locked by the lock collar 74, and thus prevents the tip ejector shaft and the ejector sleeve 73 from moving in the direction of arrow B to dislodge and eject the pipettor tip 18.
• Depressing the tip ejector actuator 70 in the direction of arrow C will cause its tapered lower end 78 to coact with a mating inclined surface of a ramp wedge 80, causing the ramp wedge to shift in the direction of the lock collar, and creating a force lifting the lock collar from its angled locked position to a raised unlocked position.
• the tip ejector shaft is released to move through the lock collar in the direction of arrow B under the force of spring 82.
• the tip ejector sleeve 73 will be correspondingly moved, causing the pipettor tip 18 to be dislodged and ejected from the end of the pipettor tip holder 16.
• a damper mechanism in another embodiment, includes a piston 84 formed at the upper end of the tip ejector shaft 72.
• the piston is encircled by an O- ring seal and enclosed in a chamber 86 vented to atmosphere by a one way check valve 88. Movement of the tip ejector shaft in direction A causes air to be expelled from the chamber 86 via the check valve, whereas movement in direction B is retarded by the rate at which air can be readmitted to the chamber via a smaller bleed hole 90.
• the retarded rate of travel in direction B beneficially retards the velocity at which the pipettor tip is ejected.
• the adjustment drive collar 60 is surrounded by an encoder wheel 92 that rotates with the adjustment drive collar and that comprises part of an encoder assembly 94.
• the pipettor includes a voice recognition system VRS that translates verbal commands 96 for volume settings and outputs the result 98 to a central processing unit CPU.
• the CPU generates an electronic signal 99 that controls the motor 66, and may optionally receive input 100 from the encoder assembly 94 indicative of the position of the adjustable stop. The pipettor 's adjustment mechanism is thus moved automatically to the position corresponding to the voice input setting.

Landscapes

• Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
• Clinical Laboratory Science (AREA)
• Chemical & Material Sciences (AREA)
• Chemical Kinetics & Catalysis (AREA)
• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Audiology, Speech & Language Pathology (AREA)
• Human Computer Interaction (AREA)
• Computational Linguistics (AREA)
• Acoustics & Sound (AREA)
• Multimedia (AREA)
• Sampling And Sample Adjustment (AREA)
• Devices For Use In Laboratory Experiments (AREA)
• Joints Allowing Movement (AREA)
• Eye Examination Apparatus (AREA)
• Containers And Packaging Bodies Having A Special Means To Remove Contents (AREA)
• Feeding, Discharge, Calcimining, Fusing, And Gas-Generation Devices (AREA)
• Automatic Analysis And Handling Materials Therefor (AREA)

Priority Applications (4)

Applications Claiming Priority (4)

Publications (1)

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Cited By (9)

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Citations (5)

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• 2002
  • 2002-10-16 EP EP02780452A patent/EP1438138B1/en not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 2002-10-16 WO PCT/US2002/032782 patent/WO2003033151A1/en not_active Ceased
  • 2002-10-16 DE DE60237627T patent/DE60237627D1/de not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 2002-10-16 AT AT02780452T patent/ATE480330T1/de not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 2002-10-16 US US10/271,867 patent/US6923938B2/en not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 2002-10-16 JP JP2003535934A patent/JP4148894B2/ja not_active Expired - Lifetime
• 2005
  • 2005-03-16 US US11/081,395 patent/US8088342B2/en not_active Expired - Fee Related

Patent Citations (5)

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