Hybrid manual-electronic pipette

Abstract

A hybrid manual-electronic pipette combines a manually driven piston with real-time electronic measurement of liquid volume and piston displacement while compensating for both pipette-specific and pipette model-specific variations. The hybrid nature of the pipette facilitates increased accuracy and improved ease of use, and enables additional functionalities not practicable with traditional manual pipettes.

1 . A hybrid manual-electronic pipette operative to handle a fluid, the pipette comprising:
 a piston assembly comprising a manually operated piston and an electronic sensor coupled to the piston;   a fluid-tight liquid end receiving the piston and defining a distal opening permitting fluid to be picked up or discharged therethrough in response to movement of the piston within the liquid end;   a processing unit coupled to receive at least one measurement from the electronic sensor, wherein the measurement relates to a pipetting operation performed by a user of the pipette; and   a memory subsystem adapted to store at least one data record including a parameter representative of the measurement.   
   
   
       2 . The hybrid pipette of  claim 1 , wherein the pipetting operation comprises one of:
 an aspiration stroke, a dispense stroke, a pause before aspiration, a pause after aspiration, a blowout stroke, a pause after blowout, a mixing stroke, or a titration stroke.   
   
   
       3 . The hybrid pipette of  claim 1 , wherein the electronic sensor comprises at least one of a piston position sensor, a liquid volume sensor, a piston speed sensor, a pipette orientation sensor, an accelerometer, or a tip depth sensor. 
   
   
       4 . The hybrid pipette of  claim 3 , wherein the electronic sensor is a piston position sensor comprising one of: a variable resistor, an optical sensor, a capacitive sensor, an inductive sensor, or a magnetic field sensor. 
   
   
       5 . The hybrid pipette of  claim 1 , wherein the data record further comprises at least one of: a time stamp or a stroke number. 
   
   
       6 . The hybrid pipette of  claim 1 , wherein the parameter comprises at least one of: a pause duration at a home position preceding an aspiration stroke; a pause duration at an upper stop following an aspiration stroke; a pause duration following a blowout stroke; a minimum, maximum, or average piston speed during an aspiration stroke; a minimum, maximum, or average piston speed during a dispensing stroke; a minimum, maximum, or average piston speed during a blowout stroke; an aspiration stroke starting location; an aspiration stroke ending location; a dispensing stroke ending location; a stroke direction at a specified stroke location; or a stroke speed at a specified stroke location. 
   
   
       7 . The hybrid pipette of  claim 1 , further comprising a transceiver operative to transmit the data record to an external device. 
   
   
       8 . The hybrid pipette of  claim 7 , wherein the transceiver enables a wireless data link between the pipette and the external device.