The ware for December 2018 is from a 454 Sequencer. The direction of flow is actually from a single input port, splitting into two separate ports, each driven by independent peristaltic pumps downstream of the splitter. The four black boxes are customized Introtek “IntroFlow” ultrasonic non-invasive flow detectors. It’s interesting to see that many readers assumed the flow went in the combining direction, not the splitting direction.

I originally thought the ware was a simple flow splitter because the machine had a single reagent cartridge, and reagents are expensive so if they needed reagents in two spots it would be worth it to include a mechanism for splitting and measuring the flow. But after reading Stuart’s comment, I think he’s probably right, it’s a bubble trap. When I removed the device from the machine, I hadn’t quite traced the pipes back far enough — the inlet goes to a valve that looks like it can either select from a set of reagent sources, or a port that is labeled “air out”. So congrats to Stuart, email me for your prize!

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