The device has 16 spots for PCR tubes. The best option is t use 2x 8 mirotube strips for each experiment. Once received you have to perform 4 kind of tests that the software suggests you. The most important is the optical calibration test which needs a reagent called "Open qPCR Fluorescein Calibration", avialable in the device shipment.

Probably before August i can give you more info about the first experiments.

P.D: I attach you a picture of the heater box when you open the lid.

Regards!

Hi Jeffrey

My colleague Jordi Morató will receive a new one in a few weeks. Later on I will share this experience with you. In advance, I'm sure that it will work equal if not better than old real time thermaclycers. Under the point of view of electronics, not is complicated to design a device like this, I opine that the most critical point is the software, ...however if is possible to export tha data to a Excel o Txt file, it will be possible to do good analysis.

best regards

I'm sure it must be possible to export in those formats, anything is possible with open source. Thanks for letting me know, I'm looking forward to hearing your experience with it! 

It appears to be running Apache webserver and displaying the data via a webpage. If that is the case, at worst Firefox with the Addon, TableTools2 can scrape the data into a spreadsheet.

I've the feeling that this the beginning of something new. As the qPCR now is very cheap, clever people can do great projects in all areas but also it can be a very useful tool for educational purposes. At this moment, for less than 5000$, you can do molecular biology at very good level...at home ! I know people that spent more money in a mountain bike.

I know very little about PCR but at this price I'm tempted. I'd like to go looking at tick bourne diseases especially after the prerelease of this paper. 6 species of Borrelia found in Australian ticks.

http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/pdf/s13071-015-0958-3.pdf

Francesc Codony, has your colleague got his new toy and had a chance to use it yet?

Any updates yet? The more I look, the more I think it would be a useful tool. I could also use it to discover contamination or substitution in purchased dried herbs.

I'm curious about these machines too!  I'd love to have one to set up a home lab!

Dear All

We don't received yet the instrument, the delivery was scheduled for two weeks ago...thus the manufacturers have some delay.

best regards

Has the machine arrived yet and if so, have you had a chance to try it out?

Hi

The machine don't arrived...really not is a good and serious organization, because until I know it has been paid. Too many excuses.

best regards

Dear All

The machines don't arrive. Until I know, other one Spanish lab also is expecting the delivery. At this moment it looks as a fraud.

Take care with this organization.

Yeah I got that impression. Thank you for your input.

Hi

The last post

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chaibio/open-qpcr-dna-diagnostics-for-everyone/posts/1462098?ref=backer_project_update

best

Hi, 

I came across this discussion and thought I would help alleviate some fears about Chai being a fraud. We're located on the University of Alberta campus and have had several machines throughout their beta testing phase. We received two more machines yesterday, Feb 2. I believe Chai has been focusing on some issues with manufacturing, but the machines are real, Chai is still a real company, and they still pick up the phone every time we call. The machines do have a few software issues, but the hardware is finalized. They'll be adding some features in software to make reporting easier, but we're able to get results.

I attached a photo of our machines. I hope this alleviates some fears.

Walter

Hi Walter

Many thanks for the update. Really are good news, I will send a link of this discussion to my colleagues at the University. Not is an easy project, if finally the Chai team overcomes all the difficulties nobody will remember this huge delay.

best regards

Hi Walter

Could you please share how did the Open qPCR performed (during the beta testing in your lab) in comparison with the "established" brands (like ABI or Bio-Rad)?

Thanks

Has anyone received their Open qPCR machine yet?  I purchased mine in 2014 and still waiting!  I've had to put my research on hold.

Dear Lisa, we received ours 3 weeks ago. After some troubles with its installation that we solved mailing with the company, now it seems is ready to work. We deosn' tested yet cause we are in other researc. The machine is the one who Dr.Codony referred to

This is Josh from Chai. We have cleared our backlog of single channel device orders but still have a number of dual channels to ship. I apologize about the delays with the dual channel devices - it proved significantly more challenging to design than the single channel due to the smaller optics required, smaller signals, need for deconvolution, etc. The design is complete and it is working well, our pilot in-house production is now complete, and we're now in the process of moving its production to our contract manufacturer. This process is going more smoothly than it did when we initially moved our single channel production to the CM, but given that it started late, we've still got a few more weeks to go. At this point we're expecting to clear out the existing dual channel orders in 4-5 weeks, and Lisa we'll ship yours ASAP.

OK, looking forward to a functioning machine.

Dear Marc, its a very good new, I hope you give us the opportunity to test this instrument , we are planning to do a few experiments with the other cyclers in order to evaluate the performance.

I'm also interested in these machines. From the posts it looks like they are being shipped to labs, but none has reported yet if they actually work well. Has anyone run any experiments so far with the Open qPCR?

I'm interested in these instruments and am also curious whether anyone has actually run any qPCR experiments on one of these. 

The device has 16 spots for PCR tubes. The best option is t use 2x 8 mirotube strips for each experiment. Once received you have to perform 4 kind of tests that the software suggests you. The most important is the optical calibration test which needs a reagent called "Open qPCR Fluorescein Calibration", avialable in the device shipment.

Probably before August i can give you more info about the first experiments.

P.D: I attach you a picture of the heater box when you open the lid.

Regards!

I know some in this thread are still waiting for their machines, please see https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chaibio/open-qpcr-dna-diagnostics-for-everyone/posts/1649626 for our latest update.

Also note that the open source software is here: https://github.com/chaibio/chaipcr

We'll be releasing the open source hardware in a few weeks, we have a bit of work to do prior to release (such as converting from SolidWorks 2016 into more open formats), and the engineering team has been focused on making the improvements detailed in the update and getting units shipped to customers.

Is there a user group or a forum somewhere? It seems like it would be a good idea to set up a site for users to discuss the software, etc. Especially considering how incomplete the software is now, it would be helpful to have a place to put forward a list of features that need to be added, give feedback on changes, etc.

just recieved mine. worked like a charm for isothermal amplification

HI

is the new software already out??? and how to reset the password in the openqPCR software??? 

New software is out. However, once I installed it, I get an immediate "Unknown column 'ramp_id' in 'field list'" error whenever I try to run anything. So, yeah.

The hardware seems ok but the software is not even close to done enough for the device to be useful for much.

Hello,

Do anyone still use this in 2017? How's the reliability?

We are writing a paper based  on a comparative test with three other commercial instruments. The main conclusions is that is good enough for qualitative detection. For quantitative qPCR not works as well the others however, is a very cheap instrument. According my experience it can be used for microbial analysis but taking some additional measures  for control the bias.

Hi Francesc,

This is Lily with Chai Bio. May I ask what type of quantitative testing you’ve been performing on the Open qPCR (specimen type, detection method, cycling conditions, etc.)? We would love to get some feedback from you for continual improvement on the system.

I’m attaching data from our in-house testing. Are your results similar to these? If not, we'd be happy to help troubleshoot if you'd like to share your data with us.

Cheers,

Lily

Francesc,

Thanks for the information that you give here.

I have been thinking about buying one of these, but I had not been able to find many users sharing their experience with this machine. Your comments above about comparing different machines is therefore interesting, and I would like to add, a bit worrisome, as you state that is good for qualitative detection (but why I would use Q-PCR that for ?) but does not seem to work well for quantitative work (that is what I want to use it for). Can you be a bit more specific, either here or on my personal e-mail address (jan.veenstra[at]u-bordeaux.fr; feel free to do so in Spanish if that is more convenient, my catalan is not very good).

Jan

Dear Lily , I apologize for not responding before your message. Probably the notification of your message was lost in my e-mails folder. Today I detected the message of Jan, as well your message.

Regarding your question

We compared the performance of the Open qPCR with three other instruments, of course quite more expensive. We applied the same protocol with Legionella DNA, our results showed that the Open qPCR is a valid instrument for microbiology applications. In this comparison the Open qPCR don't was the best one, however in terms of ISO/TS 12869: (2012) criteria, the results were acceptable.

I well know the difficulties of develop scientific instruments. Our unit of Open qPRC instrument looks well, it is solid and works well. For this reason, at the current price I opine that Chai did a great job.

As your instrument, in some cases, will be the first instrument of many laborartoies. I opine that in the success of your project also will be very important your thecnical support.

Dear Jan just I sent you a data set.

Best regards

Hello,

I am using Chai Qpcr currently and i am really satisfied with the results. I compare results with 3 different device (Biorad CFX, Roche Lightcycler480II and Chai) and Ct values are close enough to trust Chai.

I can only complain about calibration solutions which allows only 3 calibration and you need the calibrate the device everytime you change the location.

Dear Ezgi,

We are entertaining with the idea of purchasing the open source qPCR machine for our lab. I would love to find out some details from your research comparison performance of Chai qPCR . Could you please email me at [email protected]? Also, do you have a single or a dual channel qPCR? Thanks

We've received many requests for references of the Open qPCR system so I wanted to share the post below. Hope it's helpful!

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Anyone_having_inputs_on_Chais_Open_qPCR

Hey all. I am tasked with getting a shelved qPCR machine up and running to help determine quality of RAD-seq libraries prior to sequencing. I have a few questions:

1) How do I determine if I have a single or dual-channel? The model is A1005, which has thus far been unhelpful in determining what I have.

2) Has anyone used this machine for library prep quality control? If so, what reagents/brand have you used successfully with this machine? Specifically, have you used KAPA Library Quantification Kit? And do you have a single or dual-channel?

Thank you in advance :)

Hi Katrina,

Jumping in to address your questions.

1) You're able to view the model type by a) looking at the label - bottom right on the back of the instrument or b) viewing the amplification results screen - single channels will not display a "Choose Channel" option.

Please see the link here for reference: http://bit.ly/OQ-Model-Differentiation

2) We have customers who are using the KAPA kit on the Open qPCR to quantitate their libraries for NGS.

Feel free to contact [email protected] if you would like further information :)

Cheers,

Lily

Has anyone used this for clinical work?

this link is useful

https://www.chaibio.com/openqpcr

regards

It depends on your budget, otherwise you may purchase more sophisticated

qPCR machine....

Good morning

My name is Leya Joykutty and I am a high school teacher. I run an advanced competitive research program at my high school and would like to purchase a qPCR machine. I see you have purchased the CHAI qPCR and I was wondering if you could give me an honest appraisal on whether this is a worthwhile investment as I need to purchase one and have it last for at least a decade.. How is the unit? Does it work well? Is is reliable and hardy? What is customer service like? Why would you recommend (or not) this unit over others in the market?

Could you help please? If you would like to answer confidentially, you could email me back at [email protected]. I would appreciate your responses so much!

Thank you!

Leya