Background - Why use the robot?
Advantages of remote access robot mounting:
Convenience – no need to travel.
Easier to split shift between more people.
Pre-mounting crystals can save precious beamtime.
Very reactive crystals can be mounted in a fume hood in your lab.
Some crystals can crack, shatter, or degrade in quality when transported by air or road to get to the synchrotron.
Faster – no need to lock up hutch every time, wait for detector to move etc.
Good for standard crystallography
When to still handmount crystals:
Non-standard experiments
Very difficult crystals, where you may need to mount 10-20 crystals and base mounting decisions on diffraction data.
Using synchrotron equipment to mount (cold-mount, humidity control, gases etc.)
When you need advice and assistance from beamline staff.
Before your beamtime
Mounting and cryo-cooling crystals
You can use this handy puck tracking sheet for keeping track of which crystal goes in each port.