Tempest® High-Throughput Liquid Dispenser
Flexible and Precise Reagent Dispensing
Amazing liquid handler for scale down assay development and screen workflows
Biochemistry, High Throughput Screening
The Tempest is a walkup and integration friendly device for combinatorial assay development and reagent handling. It excels and liquid handling accuracy and precision, making it a great tool for scale down assay development and screening. The basic user interface is easy to use and understand, although more complex features can be hard to manage. Initial training on the equipment was not sufficient to avoid some preventable hardware and liquid handling errors.
Review Date: 15 Jul 2022 | FORMULATRIX®, Inc.
Great instrument. Works with no issues and support is amazing.
Manufacturing of reagent plates.
Its not easy setting up the instrument for first time use in terms of the software. The instrument works great after setup. Customer support is amazing in terms of help.
Review Date: 23 Sept 2020 | FORMULATRIX®, Inc.
Manufacturer's Response
The software for the TEMPEST comes pre-installed on the instrument and there is no need for a user to install any software. The experience described may have been an IT issue due to local restrictions. We are happy to hear that our support has helped you get up to speed.
TEMPEST liquid handler - Highly recommended!
High-throughput screening
The TEMPEST is by far the best liquid handler for HTS that I have ever used. I have performed multiple successful high-throughput screens with ours. It uses no consumables (tips), it dispenses without contacting the plate and primes the lines without waste by recirculating reagent. The TEMPEST dispenses are so accurate that I would routinely run 55-plate dispenses with just 2ml dead-volume and never had any fear of running out of reagent.
Review Date: 23 Sept 2020 | FORMULATRIX®, Inc.
Great reproducibility of the data.
Test compounds
We used the tempest dispenser for our drug discovery projects. It is a precious instrument for the dispensing of cells, biochemical reagents and detection mix for biochemical and cellular assays.
Review Date: 23 Sept 2020 | FORMULATRIX®, Inc.
Accurate dispensing with low dead volumes.
Reagent loading
The Tempest works well for bulk dispensing of multiple reagents. The only problem we had was with the stackers, which often got stuck with plates. The customer service team worked hard to remedy this issue.
Review Date: 23 Sept 2020 | FORMULATRIX®, Inc.
Excellent positive displacement dispenser.
Robot integrated reagent dispenser
The Tempest is a precise positive displacement bulk reagent dispenser. In our experience, we see highly reproducible results in all of our assay reagent additions. Setting up dispense lists is easy and intuitive. Having the flexibility to dispense up to 12 reagents from a single dispenser allows us to design assays in ways we could not with single reagent dispensers in the the past.
Review Date: 28 Jan 2020 | FORMULATRIX®, Inc.
Excellent for assay development and screening
Enzymatic screening
The instrument is easy to configure and offers a high degree of versatility for liquid handling tasks. Having the stackers and a time delay option is immensely helpful for biochemical screens and other applications. The software for plate teaching and creating protocols is very simple to work with.
Review Date: 23 May 2016 | FORMULATRIX®, Inc.
Small Volume Dispensing
This is one of the best instruments on the market. This instrument has a small footprint that fits easily into labs. It can dispense twelve different reagents to any location and any volume on a plate, and even use barcode pick lists to direct the location and volume of dispensing. This instrument is a non-contact dispenser and we have seen our data quality improve by incorporating this instrument into our workflow. It is an invaluable piece of equipment, easily one of the best investments for a small volume dispensing lab. Enables DOE experiments as well. The one down side is for u shaped wells modifications need to be made to dispense speed to ensure the volume stays in the wells. We have found the support and assistance from Formulatrix to be excellent, and I would highly recommend this instrument.
Review Date: 8 Apr 2016 | FORMULATRIX®, Inc.
The Tempest is a consumable-free, non-contact, multipurpose liquid dispenser that leverages microdiaphragm pump and continuous flow chip technologies for high-throughput liquid dispensing. It allows researchers to dispense up to 12 different reagents simultaneously through 96 independently controlled outputs, delivering any volume of any reagent, into any well.
Technical Data:
Min: 0.2 µL
Max: ∞
Precision: CV <5% @ 0.2 µL
Technology: Micro-Diaphragm Pumps + Continuous Flow
Application:
- High Throughput Screening (HTS)
- Assay Development and Design of Experiment (DoE)
- Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISA)
- Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Workflows – Real-time and Digital
- Biochemical Assay Development and Screening
- Cell Culture and Bead-Based Assays
- Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) – Library Preparation
Benefits:
- Precision: Uses non-contact microfluidic technology, ensuring high accuracy and precision across a broad range of reagent types, including cells and beads
- Speed: Dispense up to 12 reagents across 96 individually controlled nozzles in just seconds. e.g., 200 nL to a 96-well plate in 3 seconds; 1 μL to 384-well plate in 5 seconds. Fill a 96-deep-well plate with 2 mL per well in under 2 minutes
- High Throughput: Stackers and barcode reader for automated high throughput screening workflows
- Flexibility: The Tempest supports diverse inputs (pipette tips, tubes) and reagents (cells, beads, harsh chemicals), and is compatible with all SBS plates.
- Low Dead-Volume: Non-recoverable dead volume as low as 48 μL per chip
- Cost Savings: Miniaturize assay design to reduce reagent usage, while tip-free, easy-to-clean components eliminate the need for consumables
- Biosafety Cabinet Compatible: With its compact dimensions (555 mm x 309.67 mm x 266.56 mm), the Tempest can be used in various biosafety cabinets to accommodate workflows that require this level of safety
- Automation-Friendly: Integrate with external systems effortlessly with a network API


















