Thermo Scientific ALPS 3000

The ALPS 3000 is a heat sealer for microplates from Thermo Scientific, controlled over an RS-232 serial interface.

Product page: https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/AB-3000

Property	Value
Communication	Serial / RS-232, ASCII command protocol
Serial settings	9600 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, no handshake
Terminator	CR (\r)

The ALPS 300, 3000, and 5000 share a command core but use different status flags and error codes, so each has its own driver class.

Warning

This driver has NOT been tested against hardware in PyLabRobot. If you verify it on a sealer, please open a PR to remove the not-tested warning.

Physical setup

Connect the sealer’s RS-232 port to your computer, typically through a USB-to-serial adapter. Make sure the sealer’s serial parameters match the driver defaults (9600 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, no handshake).

Connect

setup() opens the serial port, waits for the device to be ready, and pre-heats to the preheating temperature. It also logs the not-tested warning.

from pylabrobot.thermo_fisher.alps import ThermoScientificALPS3000

sealer = ThermoScientificALPS3000(port="/dev/ttyUSB0")  # replace with your port
await sealer.setup()

Seal a plate

seal() applies the time and temperature, waits for the heater to reach the setpoint, then seals the plate. Sealing time is 0.5–9.9 s; temperature is 5–199 °C.

await sealer.seal(temperature=170, duration=2.5)

Temperature

Set the sealing temperature setpoint and read the current heater temperature.

await sealer.set_temperature(160)
print("Current temperature:", await sealer.request_temperature(), "C")

Status

Read the status byte as a set of flags.

print("Status:", await sealer.request_status())

Teardown

await sealer.stop()