Heat, cool and shake — right on the deck.
A family of compact heating, cooling and shaking modules built for the decks of automated liquid handlers. Internal control electronics, a single-slot footprint and an open RS-485 interface — integration without an external controller.
5,000rpm
Max mixing speed
0–120°C
Thermal range across the family
±0.1mm
In-situ positioning accuracy
140 × 98mm
Single-slot deck footprint
One deck footprint. Four modules, ten configurations.
thetaShake
Pure orbital mixing in the family's lowest-profile body — beads, reagents and viscous liquids from 200 to 5,000 rpm, with no temperature control and no external controller.
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thetaShake HT
Simultaneous heating and shaking in one deck slot — drive to 99 °C while mixing to compress incubation steps from hours to minutes, with no external controller.
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thetaFlex
Heat, cool and shake in one deck slot. Solid-state temperature control from 4 to 99 °C with orbital mixing up to 5,000 rpm — no water bath, no external controller.
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thetaTemp
Solid-state heating and cooling across the widest range in the family — 0 to 120 °C with ≤±0.2 °C control, no shaking and no external controller.
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Locked, sensor-controlled positioning
Automatic in-situ positioning to ±0.1 mm and automatic clamping hold every plate flat and fixed — reproducible seating, run after run, at any mixing frequency.
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Flexible shaking performance
Three orbital amplitudes — 1.2, 2.0 and 3.0 mm — across 200 to 5,000 rpm at ±25 rpm, mixing liquids from low-viscosity buffers to dense bead slurries.
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Rapid, precise temperature control
Fast heating and cooling with control to ≤±0.2 °C and tight well-to-well uniformity — from 4 °C reagent storage up to a 120 °C working range, depending on module.
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Plug-and-play — no external controller
Control electronics live inside the module. Each unit runs directly from the host computer over standard RS-422/485, dropping into new and existing systems alike.
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Broad labware compatibility
SBS microplates from 1 to 384 wells, 1.5/2 mL centrifuge tubes, PCR strips and reagent reservoirs — plus custom thermal adapters for deep-well plates, tube racks and microfluidic chips.
A compact body with the controller already inside.
Every module keeps the same 140 × 98 mm footprint and integrates its PCBA internally — so a workstation gains heating, cooling or shaking without surrendering a deck position to a separate control box. Selectable cable routing keeps dense layouts clean.
- 1 Direct-contact platform. A solid-state block drives the labware directly for fast, uniform transitions across 0–120 °C — with over 200 interchangeable adapters to fit any plate, tube or reservoir format.
- 2 Seeing is believing. A clear on-board readout — no more staring at a string of text trying to decipher it.
- 3 Solid-state heat exchange. Heating and cooling handled inside the body — no water bath, no external chiller.
- 4 RS-485/422 industrial bus. A rugged industrial bus architecture for fast, two-way, uninterrupted communication — with selectable cable routing to keep dense decks clean.
One serial bus, cabled your way.
Every module speaks RS-422/485 — a rugged, addressable multi-drop bus. Chain a deck of modules onto one bus and bridge it to the workstation PC through a single USB adapter; the host talks to each module by address, with no external controller in between. Power stays per-module — pick the connector that fits the build.
A standard AC→DC power brick per module and an RS-422/485 cable to a USB adapter on the PC. Nothing else to install.
A single M12 connector carries each module's 24 V and RS-485 in one rugged cable — with the current headroom for the 120 W heated and cooled modules. Bus them along a backbone and bridge the run to the PC over USB, one tidy chain instead of a bundle of leads. M8 is available for low-power modules where a smaller connector helps.
The workstation PC only exposes USB, so the RS-485 bus always terminates at a USB bridge — the same simple pattern whichever connector you choose.
Compare the family.
| Specification | thetaShake · TL-S | thetaShake HT · TL-HS | thetaFlex · TL-TS | thetaTemp · TL-T-00 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temperature range | — | RT+5 – 99 °C | 4 – 99 °C | 0 – 120 °C |
| Temperature accuracy | — | ≤ ±0.2 °C | ≤ ±0.2 °C | ±0.2 °C |
| Uniformity | — | ≤ ±1.0–2.0 °C | ≤ ±1.0–2.0 °C | ≤ ±0.5–2.0 °C |
| Heating rate | — | ≥ 12 K/min | ≥ 11 K/min | ≥ 8 K/min |
| Cooling rate | — | — | ≥ 13 K/min | ≥ 11 K/min |
| Max mixing speed (2K/3K/5K) | 2,000 / 3,000 / 5,000 rpm | 2,000 / 3,000 / 5,000 rpm | 2,000 / 3,000 / 5,000 rpm | — |
| Amplitude (2K/3K/5K) | 3.0 / 2.0 / 1.2 mm | 3.0 / 2.0 / 1.2 mm | 3.0 / 2.0 / 1.2 mm | — |
| Positioning | ±0.1 mm, auto clamp | ±0.1 mm, auto clamp | ±0.1 mm, auto clamp | — |
| Dimensions (W×D×H) | 140 × 98 × 56 mm | 140 × 98 × 60.6 mm | 140 × 98 × 98 mm | 140 × 98 × 81 mm |
| Max power | 35 W | 120 W | 120 W | 120 W |
| Supply | 24 V DC | 24 V DC | 24 V DC | 24 V DC |
| Interface | RS-422 / RS-485 | RS-422 / RS-485 | RS-422 / RS-485 | RS-422 / RS-485 |
All modules support SBS-size microplates (1–384 wells), 1.5/2 mL tubes, PCR strips and reservoirs. Shaking modules come in three speed configurations — 2K (3.0 mm), 3K (2.0 mm) and 5K (1.2 mm).
From sample prep through detection.
Deployed across automated workflows where mixing and temperature drive the result — NGS library prep, nucleic acid extraction, flow cytometry, PCR and ELISA.
Put the workflow on deck.
Tell us the handler and the assay — we'll help you spec the right modules and adapters, and get you evaluation units.
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