Compact jam-resistant capillary dispenser for automation systems

A compact capillary dispenser has been designed that reliably stores fragile glass capillaries in a known orientation and positively inserts one on demand into a robotic gripper head. A unique feature of the design keeps the capillaries from jamming. A successful prototype was built that stores 3800, 5 μL glass capillaries (55 mm length, 838 μm outside diameter) in an 8 cm cube, excluding the space required for two small pneumatic cylinders. The fundamental design of this dispenser can be scaled to dispense virtually any size round cylindrical objects.