An Open-source Capping Machine Suitable for Confined Spaces
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Munguia-Galeano, Francisco Longley, Louis Veeramani, Satheeshkumar Zhou, Zhengxue Clowes, Rob Fakhruldeen, Hatem Cooper, Andrew I. |
| author_facet | Munguia-Galeano, Francisco Longley, Louis Veeramani, Satheeshkumar Zhou, Zhengxue Clowes, Rob Fakhruldeen, Hatem Cooper, Andrew I. |
| contents | In the context of self-driving laboratories (SDLs), ensuring automated and error-free capping is crucial, as it is a ubiquitous step in sample preparation. Automated capping in SDLs can occur in both large and small workspaces (e.g., inside a fume hood). However, most commercial capping machines are designed primarily for large spaces and are often too bulky for confined environments. Moreover, many commercial products are closed-source, which can make their integration into fully autonomous workflows difficult. This paper introduces an open-source capping machine suitable for compact spaces, which also integrates a vision system that recognises capping failure. The capping and uncapping processes are repeated 100 times each to validate the machine's design and performance. As a result, the capping machine reached a 100 % success rate for capping and uncapping. Furthermore, the machine sealing capacities are evaluated by capping 12 vials filled with solvents of different vapour pressures: water, ethanol and acetone. The vials are then weighed every 3 hours for three days. The machine's performance is benchmarked against an industrial capping machine (a Chemspeed station) and manual capping. The vials capped with the prototype lost 0.54 % of their content weight on average per day, while the ones capped with the Chemspeed and manually lost 0.0078 % and 0.013 %, respectively. The results show that the capping machine is a reasonable alternative to industrial and manual capping, especially when space and budget are limitations in SDLs. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_03743 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | An Open-source Capping Machine Suitable for Confined Spaces Munguia-Galeano, Francisco Longley, Louis Veeramani, Satheeshkumar Zhou, Zhengxue Clowes, Rob Fakhruldeen, Hatem Cooper, Andrew I. Robotics In the context of self-driving laboratories (SDLs), ensuring automated and error-free capping is crucial, as it is a ubiquitous step in sample preparation. Automated capping in SDLs can occur in both large and small workspaces (e.g., inside a fume hood). However, most commercial capping machines are designed primarily for large spaces and are often too bulky for confined environments. Moreover, many commercial products are closed-source, which can make their integration into fully autonomous workflows difficult. This paper introduces an open-source capping machine suitable for compact spaces, which also integrates a vision system that recognises capping failure. The capping and uncapping processes are repeated 100 times each to validate the machine's design and performance. As a result, the capping machine reached a 100 % success rate for capping and uncapping. Furthermore, the machine sealing capacities are evaluated by capping 12 vials filled with solvents of different vapour pressures: water, ethanol and acetone. The vials are then weighed every 3 hours for three days. The machine's performance is benchmarked against an industrial capping machine (a Chemspeed station) and manual capping. The vials capped with the prototype lost 0.54 % of their content weight on average per day, while the ones capped with the Chemspeed and manually lost 0.0078 % and 0.013 %, respectively. The results show that the capping machine is a reasonable alternative to industrial and manual capping, especially when space and budget are limitations in SDLs. |
| title | An Open-source Capping Machine Suitable for Confined Spaces |
| topic | Robotics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.03743 |