The crystal fishing page allows you to record the selection of crystals, mounting onto pins, and packing into pucks and dewars.
This page works best if you use barcoded pins, but will also work if you use non-barcoded pins.
To begin crystal fishing, choose "Crystal fishing" from the Fishing & Shipping section of the main menu.
There are a number of configuration options that you can set, to make the fishing page suit the way you work.
Click the gear wheel icon at the top right to open the fishing configuration box.
From here, you can choose whether to:
When you are happy with your choices, click the close icon at the top right. IceBear will remember your choices for next time.
Ensure that the cursor is in the "Barcode entry" text box; it should go there when the page is first loaded. Scan all the pins, pucks and dewars you plan to use during this session. Having a few extra pins is probably a good idea. It helps to lay out the pins as they appear on screen, in a line, with the first-scanned toward the back of the bench and the last-scanned toward the front. If you are not using barcoded pins, don't worry; IceBear can handle this.
You can add full, or part-full, containers - for example, if you want to fish crystals and store them in a puck that already has some pins in it, or if you have already-frozen crystals on pins that you would like to add to a shipment. If any containers are not empty, IceBear will show you this. Pucks and dewars show the number of containers inside them, while pins will show a crystal icon if they are not empty.
Once you have all the containers you need, scan the first crystallization plate that you want to fish from. It will appear in the plate area, below the barcode scanning field:
For plates with more than one drop position per well, remember to choose the correct drop position using the selector to the left.
Now that you have containers and plate on the page, you can start fishing crystals.
This is a simple drag-and-drop operation. However, you can do it in several ways, depending on how you work.
If you use barcoded pins, we recommend that you scan them and drag your crystals to the pin. If you have the option set, the pin will automatically be moved to the first empty position of the first puck.
If your pins are not barcoded, you will need to drag your crystals directly to the puck. IceBear will create a dummy pin, mount your crystal onto it, and put it into the first empty position in the puck.
We recommend the use of barcoded pins. This greatly reduces the impact of any mishandling that causes the pins to fall out of the pucks, or of the wrong puck being loaded at the synchrotron beamline.
If you have not already identified which crystal you want to fish from a given well, and you don't care, you can fish directly from the plate well.
Remember to choose the correct drop position if the plate has more than one drop per well.
Position your mouse cursor over the well, and press and hold the left mouse button. You will see a crystal icon appear. At the same time, any pins or pucks that are not full will be highlighted in green.
Move the mouse until the crystal is over the pin or puck you want to put it into. The pin or puck will turn yellow. Release the mouse button.
If you want to record fishing a specific crystal, you can open the last image of that drop.
Click the drop you want, remembering to choose the correct drop position if the plate has more than one drop per well. The drop image will appear, with any previously-marked crystals shown as crosshairs.
If the crystal you want to fish is not marked already, click on it to mark it with a new crosshair.
Position your mouse cursor over the image, and press and hold the left mouse button. You will see a crystal icon appear. At the same time, any pins or pucks that are not full will be highlighted in green.
Move the mouse until the crystal is over the pin or puck you want to put it into. The pin or puck will turn yellow. Release the mouse button.
After you have finished with this drop, click the close icon at the top right of the image.
If you need to fish crystals from another plate, just scan its barcode into the barcode box. It will replace your current plate.
To move a pin to a puck, or a puck to a dewar, simply drag it to its destination and release the mouse button.
The page won't let you do things that don't make sense, like putting a dewar into a pin.
IceBear does have configuration options to do some of this automatically. See Configuring IceBear to your liking for more details.
After fishing your crystals and placing the pins and pucks into shipping dewars, you can create a shipment containing these dewars.
Click the "Ship these dewars..." link underneath the dewars to go to the shipping page.