Agilent Bravo Option-A

[Shakur]

I was wondering if anyone out there who uses the Agilent Bravo Option-A has or knows where I can get any protocols for it. I am particularly looking for NGS ones. Thanks

[santorini]

Hi Shakur,

I know it's been a long time since your post. I have been using the Agilent Bravo-Option A in my lab and have been having a mixed experience with it. I'm starting to look into other options, but I'm really curious to hear what your experiences with the Bravo were.
Was the instrument reliable? Did you have many mechanical problems with it? Did you experience any cross contamination?

Anything you could tell me about your experience would be greatly appreciated!

[Shakur]

Hi Santorini,

We haven't had any cross contamination. It has broken down a couple of times but I would have to say the worst part of it has been programming it. I really wish it was a lot easier to code. Some things I wanted to setup I just couldn't do to the amount of time it would take me to write the program since I have other things I need to be doing.

I don't know if this helps any. What options are you looking at by the way?

[santorini]

Sounds like your experience has been similar to ours. We have been troubleshooting possible contamination issues, but so far it doesn't seem to be a big problem. For us, the main problems have been large delays and downtime for either the instrument breaking down or trying to program.

We are really looking at anything and everything to see what will work well for us. Possible top contenders are: Hamilton STAR, Perkin Sciclone, Versa 1100, BioMek FXp, and Tecan Freedom Evo.

I've been hearing some of these can also be hard to program, but as long as the customer service is more responsive, hopefully it won't be as big of an issue.