Ziath, an Azenta Life sciences company, says that the high-speed of reading and error-free decoding offered by its DataPaq Mirage 2D tube rack reader, around 1 second for a full 96 position rack, has made it the instrument of choice for many life science labs.
Neil Benn, technical director, commented: “Drawing upon our long experience of designing high performance 2D barcode readers, the Mirage employs a novel arrangement of LED lights and “light shelves” to reduce internal reflection and unwanted illumination effects. This patented optical design enables the reader to decode badly printed tubes more easily as well as to discern codes that are covered in a layer of ice. By using a high intensity of light close to the tubes, but with the light shelves blocking direct illumination of the camera, a very high contrast image can be obtained, enabling most manufacturers tubes to read easily and reliably. Images are only taken in monochrome which again increases the contrast and reduces the transfer and processing time enabling the Mirage to decode a full rack of 96 tunes in less than one second.”
The Mirage provides easy, out-of-the-box set up and is supplied pre-calibrated and ready to scan. It can scan all commonly used standard SBS format racks, and its low profile means that it can be easily added into liquid handling platforms and other automation systems. The low profile and economic price make the product the perfect replacement for a traditional flatbed scanner.
