Endy:Victor3 plate reader/protocol editing

This page assumes you have been shown how to create a blank protocol

1. Double click the new protocol in the explorer window. This opens the protocol editing window, which has a number of tabs. These instructions proceed through these tabs from left to right to set up the protocol correctly.
2. Samples - You can set which wells you want to measure here. As this is likely to change every time you run the experiment, it is better to set this at runtime. So for now we want to set all wells to be empty. Click on the triangle at the top left corner of the plate to select all cells. A small contextual menu will appear, hit empty and all wells will be set to empty.
3. ID - You can give your protocol an ID number here, we haven't had need to use this feature yet so move on quickly.
4. Measurement - In this window you set the actions that will be performed on each repeat of the protocol.
   • At the top of this window you can set whether the plate reader should apply each action to a well, strip, or plate before moving onto the next action. Normally, this will just be set to plate, i.e. take absorbance measurements for all measured wells on the plate, then take fluorescence measurements for each well on the plate.
   • Clicking on an action button on the left side of the window will add that action to the repeat. All of the actions are relatively self explanatory but hopefully more detailed information for each action will appear here at a later date. The most important action you can set is a label. When you click on an action you will be allowed to edit the options for that action. You may not add more than 10 actions to each plate reader step.
5. Plate
   • On this window you can set the number of repeats for the step you created under the measurement tab. You can also set the delay between each repeat.
   • There are also options to change the measurement height but we have never needed to change this from the standard.
   • You can also tell the machine what type of plate you are using (brand, number of wells etc). You can choose from built-in options or you can create a custom plate. For standard 96-well plates, just select "Generic 8x12 plate" (this is the default).
   • If temperature is a variable in your experiment, then it is advisable to tick the temperature warning box and add the temperature that your experiment will be performed at.
6. Outputs - This is where you set whether you want your results printed or saved as an excel file (a data file is saved by default from which you can export an excel file). Typically, tick the file output box and enter a filename (you can't change the file type from Excel 5.0).
7. Events - We don't change anything here.
8. General - We can't change anything here.