Hamilton Waste Chute

A waste chute is a hole. Labware goes in and does not come out.

That sounds too simple to need a driver, but it does need one, because Revolution tracks every piece of labware in the system and something has to tell it that a plate has ceased to exist. The chute is where that happens.

At a glance

Type	Labware disposal — passive, one location
Locations	Exactly one: the chute opening
How disposal happens	Automatically, whenever labware is placed on the chute
Revolution control	One operation, for manual testing — a schedule does not normally call it

Specifications

No manufacturer specifications are published for this device, and none are stated here. The Revolution device is a generic waste chute: it models the disposal, not a particular part number. What the chute physically is — its aperture, what it empties into, whether it is part of a liquid handler’s deck or a standalone bin — is a matter for the platform it is built into.

The one hard constraint is the aperture. A chute has to swallow the tallest and widest labware a schedule will discard, and a plate that jams on the way down is a manual intervention. Check the opening against your labware before a schedule starts sending things into it.

Supported methods

• Dispose labware — complete and remove whatever labware is currently on the chute

That operation exists for manual testing and commissioning. A schedule does not need it, because disposal is not something the chute is asked to do — it is what happens when a plate arrives.

The important behaviour is automatic. When a mover places labware on the chute’s location, Revolution disposes of it on the spot: the object is completed and removed from the system. So a schedule discards a plate the same way it moves a plate anywhere else — it transfers it to the chute, and that is the end of it. There is no separate discard step, and nothing to remember to call.

The corollary is worth stating plainly: placing labware on a waste chute is irreversible. The plate is gone from Revolution’s records as soon as the place completes. There is no retrieval, no undo, and no pick from a chute. A mis-routed transfer to a chute location destroys the plate’s identity along with the plate, so the chute’s location is one worth double-checking in a schedule that branches.

Integration

There is no cabling, no communications, no vendor software and no configuration. The chute is geometry and a location.

Prerequisites

• The chute’s single location must be taught to the robot that will serve it.
• The aperture must clear the labware the schedule will discard — including lidded plates, deep-well blocks and tip boxes if those are going the same way.
• Whatever the chute empties into needs to be sized for a run, and emptied between runs. Revolution tracks the labware it disposed of; it does not know how full the bin is.
• Where the chute is part of a liquid handler’s deck, the deck position must be free and the instrument’s own software must agree it is a waste position.

There are no device properties to set.

If you need a different disposal behaviour — a counted chute, or one that refuses labware it cannot take — get in touch.