BactoBox® comes with a menu system that lets users access extra features
Get to the menu
Press and hold Stop for 1 second to access the menu. The menu looks like this:
The menu screen at the root level
Get out of the menu
Press ← to return to the root menu, then select Home and press OK to go back to the home screen.
Menu screens
In this section we explain the purpose of selected menu screens.
History
View the results of your past measurements.
Programs
Apart from the main programs available from the buttons there are a few other specialized programs on the BactoBox®.
Click the tabs to read more about the available programs.
Pressing the “Conductivity” menu item will initiate a conductivity check program. EC is an abbreviation of electrical conductivity and the unit used by the device is µS/cm. Note that the conductivity measurement does not perform temperature compensation.
To combat persistent clogging and/or fouling of the flow cell, a 10-hour Deep clean program can be executed with a pepsin/HCl Deep clean solution supplied by SBT. The Deep clean program soaks the flow cell in the cleaning solution and runs the pump intermittently to refresh the liquid in contact with the flow cell. Run this program if you experience persistent, clogging-related errors.
An x100-concentrated QC stock vial of 1 µm silica microspheres is available from SBT Instruments. Use this solution weekly as a reference sample to 1) verify that the instrument and flow cell works as intended, 2) check for bacterial contamination of the system, 3) check for proper electrical classification, 4) check for potential clogging, and 5) ensure proper adjustment of the pump speed if needed. These features are only checked if the program is executed from the menu item “QC test”. Check the protocols booklet for information on how to prepare a QC test sample.
Tailored phase shift and amplitude settings can be exploited for custom measurements of e.g. endospores. Custom programs are created in BactoBox Explorer and subsequently uploaded via SBT Access.
In some cases, additional “contrast” is needed to separate intact cells from other components, e.g. dead cells and/or matrix background. The low conductivity program uses 1:20 PBS to improve the phase shift separation of these objects with the expense of losing some signal-to-noise ratio.
Press and hold Measure for 1 second from the home screen to access the Programs menu.
System info
Contains information on network, storage, legal and versioning.
Shows the ID of the BactoBox®, and also if the IP is connected to a network (only applicable at SBT service).
Shows how much storage space is left on the device.
The legal info menu item contains all licensing information relevant for the software used in BactoBox®.
Shows which HW, firmware and software version the BactoBox® has.
Time and date
It is possible to manually set time, date, and time zone.
To se the time choose the menu item “Set time”. Press the ∨∧ buttons to change the hour digits. Press OK to move to the minute digits. Press OK to submit.
To set the date choose the menu item “Set date”. Press ∨∧ buttons to change the year. Press OK to move to the month box and use ∨∧ buttons to change the value. Press OK to move to the day and use ∨∧ to buttons change the number. Press OK to move to the Submit box and press OK to complete setting the data.
To set the time zone press the “Set time zone” menu item. First use ∨∧ buttons to select continent, then press OK. Then select area or city and press OK. Finally, select the Submit box and press OK.
Restart the device to apply the changes.changes to take effect.
Service
The service menu contains maintenance features like the possibility of deleting all data if needed.
