The Stanford Automated Mounter: pushing the limits of sample exchange at the SSRL macromolecular crystallography beamlines

Abstract

The Stanford Automated Mounter System, a system for mounting and dismounting cryo-cooled crystals, has been upgraded to increase the throughput of samples on the macromolecular crystallography beamlines at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource. This upgrade speeds up robot maneuvers, reduces the heating/drying cycles, pre-fetches samples and adds an air-knife to remove frost from the gripper arms. Sample pin exchange during automated crystal quality screening now takes about 25 s, five times faster than before this upgrade.