Naming tip racks

resources
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in Revising TipRacks we are discussing how to model tip racks correctly.

in this thread, let’s discuss naming of tip racks. Right now, we have inherited VENUS naming, roughly:

{L,S,H}{T}{F?}

  • LSH: low (10), standard (300), high (1000) volume
  • T: tip. (vs needle? i don’t think these are used)
  • F?: filter or no filter

Let’s adopt a similar naming pattern as the plate naming standard that @CamilloMoschner introduced:

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  • manufacturer
  • tip
  • volume
  • filter or ‘’
  • suffix

example:

  • HTF → HamiltonTip1000uLFilter
  • HTF_ULTRAWIDE → HamiltonTip1000uLFilterUltrawide
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Agreed!

I had no idea what HTF stood for when I started but seeing TIP_50ul_w_filter for the 50uL tips made sense to me. I’m all for consistency here

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htf wtf

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A few bits here:

  • There will surely be more manufacturers than letters, and even less letters than would make sense to assign them. Perhaps no letters, or 3 or 4 if its important to people: EPP, HMTN, AXG, TRS, etc.
  • What about positive displacement tips?
  • Its a shame they used L for Low instead of Large, otherwise S/M/L would have been natural for encoding “size”. I don’t think that 300 uL should be called standard, “Medium” or any other word about intermediate size would be more descriptive.
  • What about 5 mL tips? Would that be size X?
  • What about larger “tips” like serological pipettes? I guess no one would call them tips although they are just large tips.

I’d suggest something with parts, in this particular order:

  • TIP_[volume][feature flags]_[manufacturer]_[trademark stuff]
  • feature flags adds as many letters as features: L for low, F for filter, P for positive displacement, and so on.
    • Example: TIP_1000F_HMT → 1000 uL hamilton filter tip.
    • Example: TIP_300_EPP → 300 uL eppendorf tip, no extra features.
    • Example: TIP_20F → any 20 uL tip with a filter.
  • In this order the features and manufacturer can be omitted when irrelevant, and the name still make sense.
  • I’d avoid poetic terms like “ULTRAWIDE” in a naming convention, unless a generic feature can be abstracted from them (e.g. a W feture flag).
    • Example: TIP_5000F_BB_MEGAKILL → 5000 uL Best Buy MEGAKILL tips.
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i should have clarified:

  • right: we should be using the same 3 letter abbreviation format for manufacturers like we do for plates
  • we haven’t used any positive displacement tips in plr yet, i like your suggestion for P
  • these (lsh) letters are from venus. i propose moving away from them entirely:
    • large/low/standard is relative
    • it is imprecise
    • venus already uses them, redefining would be awkward
    • the box includes the volume as a number
  • just call them 5000uL/5mL?
  • have serological pipettes been used in automation :eyes:

I generally like to use as few acronyms/codes as possible. It is hard to decipher, and doesn’t really save time because everyone uses autocomplete anyway. “Excessive use of made up acronyms is a significant impediment to communication”

I like this format, but I think keeping the format similar to plates makes more sense

That is what Hamilton calls this product. As far as I know, it’s a unique product and definitely a term that people will be searching for given that it’s printed on the box. (volume is printed as numbers, not the l/s/h terms)

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we should specify the orifice size of the wide bore (ie 1.2mm or 3.2mm?) to help users understand “ultra” - afaik hamilton sells both

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sure, we can include it if it helps people identify the tips

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Could be a metadata attribute or further documentation inside the docstring maybe?

I agree, PLR should have as consistent a naming-structure across all resources as possible (I know Tip is currently not a subclass of Resource but that’s just a matter of time :slight_smile: )

A quote from a different time… but I completely agree with it: definition function names should not be a riddle to solve but completely self-explanatory (or as close to it as possible).
The fact that we’re discussing what “S, M, L, F” means for different people is a testament to their ambiguous meaning.

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