Pipette Tip Family with Integrated Plunger and Sensing System
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing pipette systems, particularly air cushion and positive displacement pipettes, face issues with dosing errors due to changes in liquid weight, temperature, air pressure, and humidity, and there is a risk of incorrect pipette tip and pipette combinations leading to contamination and usage errors.
Innovation Solution
The development of a pipette tip family with integrated plungers and a pipette family featuring a spigot with a clamping region and a drive apparatus that includes a stroke rod and operating element, along with a sensing system to ensure correct matching of pipette tips with pipettes, preventing incorrect usage and enhancing precision and range of application.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If air cushion pipettes are used to simplify operation, then ease of operation is improved, but dosing precision deteriorates due to dosing errors from air cushion length changes
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the plunger from the pipette and integrates it into the pipette tip, creating a positive displacement system. This removes the air cushion intermediate layer that causes dosing errors, allowing direct contact between the plunger and liquid for precise volume measurement while maintaining ease of operation through the same drive apparatus.
Solution Approach 2:
The pipette tip with integrated plunger acts as an intermediary that eliminates the air cushion mediator. By having the plunger rod extend through the tip wall to directly contact the liquid, the system removes the air cushion as an intermediate layer that causes dosing inaccuracies due to weight changes from temperature, pressure, and humidity variations.
2Device complexity
If pipette tips without integrated plungers are used to simplify tip design, then device complexity is reduced, but dosing precision deteriorates due to air cushion effects
Solution Approach 1:
The invention merges the plunger function with the pipette tip by integrating the plunger rod directly into the tip structure. This combination creates a positive displacement system where the tip itself becomes the displacement chamber, eliminating the need for a separate plunger mechanism in the pipette while improving dosing precision through direct liquid contact.
3Ease of operation
If color coding is used to identify pipette types to improve operation, then ease of operation is improved, but reliability deteriorates due to misinterpretation and incorrect combinations
Solution Approach 1:
The sensing element provides automatic feedback to detect whether the mounted pipette tip is compatible with the pipette. The control unit receives this feedback and either enables or disables the drive apparatus accordingly, preventing incorrect combinations through automated verification rather than relying solely on user interpretation of color codes.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention replaces the manual color code identification system with an automated sensing and control system. The sensing element mechanically detects tip compatibility, and the control unit automatically enables or disables operation, substituting human visual interpretation with automated detection to eliminate misinterpretation errors.
4Reliability
If a sensing system is added to verify tip-pipette matching to improve reliability, then reliability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The sensing system automatically verifies tip compatibility without requiring additional user actions. The sensing element detects the presence and type of mounted tip, and the control unit autonomously enables or disables the drive apparatus, making the system self-verify and self-regulate to prevent incorrect usage.
Data Source
AI summary
A pipette tip family includes a plurality of pipette tips each including a tip cylinder, each of the plurality of pipette tips further includes a hollow body including a bottom end and a top end such that the bottom end defines a tip opening and the top end defines a mounting opening, a seating region is configured to clamp to the spigot and a cylindrical plunger travel path is defined between the tip opening and the seating region, a tip plunger includes a plunger guided along the plunger travel path and a plunger rod comprising a top end, the plurality of pipette tips of each subfamily are configured to be used for pipetting with pipettes of a pipette type matched thereto and are not configured to be used with pipettes of a pipette type not matched thereto.