Plate Reader
Hardware: Agilent BioTek Synergy HTX Multimode Reader
SiLA server source: src/openlab_vu/platereader
Running mode: Native under WSL (not in Docker — see below)
Overview
This directory contains the Sila connector for the BioTek Synergy HTX Multimode Reader. Under the hood, it uses the PyLabRobot (PLR) library, which provides classes for interfacing with Biotek plate readers. While at the moment it doesn't support HTX out of the box, it does support the H1 model
Unlike the earlier Gen5-based setup, this connector does not talk to the reader through BioTek's Gen5 software. It drives the hardware directly using PyLabRobot's SynergyHTBackend, wrapped by SynergyHTXController in controller/synergy.py. The SiLA feature implementation exposing this over the network lives in synergy_htx/.
Running the SiLA server
The plate reader SiLA server runs natively under WSL rather than in Docker, because docker on windows does not allow for connectivity with this device.
uv run python -m openlab_vu.platereader.synergy_htx --port 50052 --insecure
Configuration
| Environment variable / flag | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
--port |
50052 |
SiLA2 server port |
--ip-address |
127.0.0.1 (0.0.0.0 in Docker) |
Bind address |
See __main__.py for the full list of startup flags.