Fix Some Unexplained Tecan Freedom EVO System Stops

Fix some of your unexplained system stops and timing out issues during script commands, dispense, and aspirate functions for your Tecan Freedom Evo liquid handler robot by locating your Freedom EVOware system information file in the Freedom EVOware file folder and adding two lines of code to increase the time until the system times out during a long/slow commands. There are five steps to fixing the problem:

• Step 1. Locate database folder
• Step 2. Locate system information file and make a copy
• Step 3. Open the original system information file
• Step 4. Change original system information file
• Step 5. Run Validate Configuration

Automated high throughput assays are the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Nothing your Grand Poobah loves more is being able to set up a laboratory experiment and have my Tecan Freedom Evo liquid handling robot do all the work.  All I have to do is check in on it every now and then and finally collect the end product and data.  All that lovely and delicious data. 

Nothing is worse than making an awesome script to run on your Tecan then to have it to fail due to something you would have never thought of to check. 

Let’s Dispense with the Formalities

Several years ago, my team ran into an issue that we couldn’t solve with our unexplained Tecan timing out during LiHa dispense commands over five minutes. The only feedback we would get from the systems is “Your run has been stopped” or “Your run was aborted”. We checked all the usual suspects by troubleshooting issues such as back pressure, collisions, and including our liquid class settings to see if we had missed some obscure setting or overage to no avail. 

Now if you don’t know why this a big issue…my team was using the Tecan to perform protein purifications using robocolumns and the Te-Chrom platform.  It’s a high throughput purification system that combines the LiHa, Te-Link Microplate Shuttle, and the Te-Chrom stage to perform column chromatography purifications at as many as eight at a time.

In column chromatography, how long the mobile phase is allowed to interact by pipetting it through the column is very important and is known as the residence time. I will end this chromatography lesson by saying that not being able to adjust your dispense speed in your liquid class to have longer than five minute dispense times can limit the types of experiments we can do. If you needed to slowly add a continuous flow of material to a plate or tube, you would have to keep adding dispense commands to prevent the Freedom EVO from timing out and ending your experiment.

Communication is the Key to a Happy Experiment

Eventually after many failed experiments we reached out to Tecan’s help desk and they provided a solution.  We learned that the Tecan and your computer communicate with each other during a command to see if things are going ok outside of the usual feedback from errors. That check in time is around five minutes.

When the Freedom EVOware software that is running checks in with the Tecan after that five minutes and sees that it is still dispensing, aspirating, or doing whichever command it last sent, it believes that is a malfunction and the systems sends up an error and times out. If you’ve had this happen during the running of your experiment and can’t fix it, you begin to curse the day you shelled out those thousands of dollars on a Tecan. 

But don’t fret my fellow lodge members, we have a fix.  Follow these easy steps, and you’ll be able to extend that five-minute timeout to the time you desire.

Disclaimer:  Though we have used this to fix our systems, we are not responsible for any issues that might occur to your system(s) by you following this guide.  Please check with the manufacturer or your service provider prior to following this or any guide to be sure you will not cause any issue with your system.  

Step 1. Locate database folder

On the drive where you installed your copy of Freedom EVOware, navigate to the EVOware database folder on your PC typically by going to C:\ProgramData\Tecan\Evoware\database

NOTE: Many times your ProgramData folder is hidden and you’ll need to go into folder view (in Windows 10) and check to show “hidden items” or go to your folder options and under the view tab, locate and check the radio button to “show hidden files, folders, and drives”.

Step 2. Locate system information file and make a copy

In the database folder locate the system information file “evoware.inf” and make a copy the file to another folder on your desktop or external thumb drive to act as a backup.

Step 3. Open the original system information file

Open the original “evoware.inf” file in the database folder in Notepad so that you can edit the file.

Step 4. Change original system information file

In the opened “evoware.inf” file add the section “[Communication]”.

On the next line type in “AnswerTimeOut={number of milliseconds}” with the curly brackets and “number of milliseconds” replaced by a number.

It should look like the following:

[Communication]
AnswerTimeOut=1200000

For the above example an AnswerTimeOut value of 1200000 corresponds to 20 minutes.  Choose a time that is longer than any anticipated command you plan on running with some buffer.  I recommend reviewing your script and locating where you could see the system stalling the longest and set your time accordingly. 

I’ve provided some values that correspond to several times:

• 10 min = 600000 milliseconds
• 30 min = 1800000 milliseconds
• 60 min = 3600000 milliseconds

I’m sure you can do the math for other times.  I don’t know what the max time is allowed so you’ll need to experiment to determine if you can go for longer times.

Step 5. Run Validate Configuration

Open your Windows Start menu navigate to the Tecan program folder and run the “Validate Configuration” .

Fix Unexplained Tecan Freedom EVO System Stops

After this, you’re done and ready to do those long dispense and aspirate commands timeout free.

Ok guys, let the Grand Poobah know in the comments section below if this tip was useful to you and how we can improve it, so that we can know if we’re providing you with content that helps the laboratory automation community.  I look forward to reading your comments. With that said, I declare this lodge meeting over!