JPH0317241Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Technical Field] The present invention relates to an automatic specimen enclosing device, and in particular, an automatic specimen enclosing device that can automatically attach adhesive liquid to a slide glass to which a thin specimen specimen is attached without leaving any air bubbles inside. The present invention relates to an automatic specimen enclosing device capable of adhering a cover glass to a droplet.

[Prior art]

In general, tissue specimens for microscopy used for pathology and cell tissue examination begin with a process in which specimen material is cut to an appropriate size, dehydrated with alcohol, etc., and then embedded in paraffin, etc. process,
After slicing, a thin section of the specimen is attached to a slide glass, subjected to treatment steps such as staining, and then placed in a basket and stored in a xylene bath or the like. After such processing steps, the specimens are taken out of the xylene tank and sealed with a cover glass of about 0.09 to 0.1 mm using adhesive, and only then are they in a condition suitable for preservation.

When creating such specimens, it is necessary to prevent the tissue from being destroyed and the inclusion of air bubbles, which could lead to erroneous judgments, and it must also be created quickly and accurately. However, in the past, most of the steps were done manually.

In recent years, each of these processing steps has become automated, but most of the coverslipping equipment, which uses adhesive and cover glasses to encapsulate specimens attached to glass slides, is fully automated. However, even those that have been developed still have various problems.

For example, there is a known automatic specimen enclosing device developed by Shyandon Southern Products Limited of the United Kingdom (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 109377/1983). According to this example, a slide glass with the specimen attached side facing downward is guided onto the cover glass onto which the adhesive has been dripped, and the cover glass is pushed toward the upper slide glass. By raising the adhesive liquid between the slide glass and the cover glass, the specimen is sealed between the slide glass and the cover glass.

However, in such automatic specimen mounting devices, the adhesive is not applied directly onto the specimen, but only penetrates into the specimen after the cover glass comes into contact with the slide glass. There was a risk that the liquid would not penetrate completely and bubbles would remain.

Furthermore, the size of the cover glass cannot be automatically selected and supplied according to the size of the specimen, and a single size cover glass is used. However, since this type of specimen is often prepared in units of several hundred sheets, it is not desirable to uniformly use expensive cover glasses, and it is preferable to be able to select from a wide variety of sizes.

〔the purpose〕

In view of the above-mentioned points, the purpose of the present invention is to provide an automated system that can continuously cover glass coverslips onto a slide glass and that can obtain high-quality specimens without the risk of air bubbles being mixed in. An object of the present invention is to provide a specimen encapsulation device.

[Key points of the idea]

In order to achieve such an object, the present invention provides a slide glass holder having a tiltable upper surface, which is provided below a predetermined position on a conveyance path where slide glasses to which adhesive liquid is attached are continuously guided; a holding table receiving member that pivots to support the slide glass holding table and is movable up and down; a suction plate that waits above the predetermined position and holds the cover glass horizontally by suctioning the top surface of the cover glass; an elevating means that is driven to raise the slide glass holder via the holder receiving member each time the slide glass is guided; received and inclined onto the upper surface by the rise of;
means for releasing the cover glass from the suction disc at the timing when the edge of the slide glass contacts the edge of the cover glass; and at the timing when the cover glass is supplied onto the slide glass by the release means. and means for driving the elevating means to return the slide glass to the predetermined position.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an example of the automatic specimen enclosing device of the present invention. Here, 100 is a slide glass shooter that supplies slide glasses 110 one by one to the transport device 200 at predetermined time intervals. A slide glass 110 supplied from the shooter 100 is transported from right to left in the figure by a transport device 200 that repeatedly moves and stops at predetermined time intervals. Reference numeral 300 denotes a discriminating device, in which the slide glass 110 supplied onto the conveyance path 210 is
First, the discrimination device 300 discriminates the size of a specimen (not shown) attached to its upper surface. FIG. 2 shows an overview of the discrimination device 300. Here, 310 is a sensor array in which a plurality of photo sensors (not shown) are arranged, and 320 is a printed circuit board to which the sensor group is connected.

A lens box 3 in which the sensor array 310, the printed circuit board 320, and the lens assembly are built-in.
30 are both fixed above the transport device 200 and set toward the lower transport path 210. 340 is a light projection box provided on the lower surface side of the conveyance path 210, and the light projection box 340 has a slit 341 on the side in contact with the conveyance path 210;
A light shielding member 342 having a vertical plate 342A and line filament lamps 343 arranged before and after the vertical plate 342A are provided at the bottom position directly below the vertical plate 342A.

Therefore, the slit 34 of this vertical plate 342A
The upper surface 342B facing the camera 1 is finished in black to absorb light and prevent it from reflecting.If you look down into the light projection box 340 vertically from the lens box 330 side through the slit 341, Only this black top surface 342B is visible, and the lamp 343
As shown by the broken line in the figure, the light emitted directly upward from each lamp 343 is limited by the light shielding member 342 and the slit 341, and the lens box 330 The light is not received by the sensor group of the sensor array 310 via the sensor array 310.

Therefore, if the slide glass 110 is transported along the transport path 210 and there is no specimen on its upper surface, the sensor array 310 will not be exposed to any light due to the transparency of the glass. is never detected.

However, if specimen pieces 111A and 111B are placed on the slide glass 110 as shown in FIG. 3, when the slide glass 110 passes over the slit 341, these specimen pieces 111A and 111B The attached areas S1 and S2 receive light from the lamp 343 and generate scattered light.

This scattered light is received by the sensor disposed in this part of the sensor array 310 via the lens group, so that the specimen piece 11
The entire range to which the specimen pieces 1A and 111B are attached, that is, the limit length S3 to which the specimen pieces 111A and 111B are attached in the longitudinal direction of the slide glass 110 is detected. The detected length S3 is compared and determined with lengths of a plurality of set types, so that a determination signal corresponding to the type can be supplied via a control section to be described later.

Therefore, when the size of the specimen on the slide glass 110 is detected by such a discriminating device 300, the adhesive liquid is transferred to the liquid injection device 400 shown in FIG. The amount is injected according to the amount.

500 is a cover glass sorting and supplying device. 5
Reference numeral 10 designates the sorter, and the sorter 510 has a sorting section 511 that stores cover glasses of multiple types, four different sizes in this example, stacked one above the other. Only one cover glass of a corresponding size can be selectively pulled out by the extraction mechanism 530. Further, the pulled-out cover glass is guided by the transfer mechanism 550 onto the slide glass 110, which has finished dropping the adhesive liquid and has been transported to the bonding position.

Below the slide glass 110 at this adhesion position, slide glass 11 is moved up and down at appropriate timing.
An adhesive enclosing device (hereinafter referred to as an adhesive device) 600 is provided for adhering 0 to the cover glass.

FIG. 4 shows an example of the bonding device 600, and a spline socket 611 in which an elevating shaft 610 is fitted vertically is attached to the upper plate 601A of the case 601 of the bonding device 600. 612 is a pendulum stand holder fixed to the upper end of the lifting shaft 610, and the upper surface of the pendulum stand holder 612 is provided with a groove 6 having an arc-shaped cross section.
12A, and a slide glass holding stand (hereinafter referred to as a pendulum stand) 613 corresponding to the shape of the groove 612A is swingably mounted via a roller bearing 614.

615 is a fixed pin 616 on the side of the pendulum stand 613
The pendulum rod 617 is a weight attached to the lower end of the pendulum rod, and a tilt angle adjustment member 618 whose length can be freely adjusted is attached from the case 601 to the pendulum rod 615 via a bracket 602. It is set up protrudingly.

By adjusting the length of this angle adjusting member 618, the pendulum stand 6
13 can be held at an inclination of, for example, 1 to 7 degrees (see Fig. 5 (A)), and under normal use, the pendulum stand 613 should be inclined to this degree. This allows the slide glass 110 to maintain a suitable posture during the bonding operation described later. Note that FIG. 5(A) shows that the slide glass 110 is still being conveyed onto the conveyance path 210.

However, here 551 is the transfer mechanism 550
This is the arm 551 in Fig. 5(A).
A suction disk 552 attached to the tip of the cover glass 518 is shown sucking the cover glass 518 supplied from the sorting and supplying device 500 and guiding it onto the slide glass 110 at the bonding position 533A. In addition, in FIG. 4, the arm 551 is at the transfer position 55.
3 (at this position 553, the cover glass 5 pulled out from the cover glass sorter 510 shown in FIG.
18 is transferred from the extraction mechanism 530 to the transfer mechanism 550), and is rotated as shown by the arrow and moved to the bonding position 533A.

619 is the lower end of the lifting shaft 610 and the case 601
This is an elevating shaft holding spring held between a spring receiving member 603 attached to the elevating shaft 610, and the elevating shaft 610 is biased toward the uppermost position by the spring force of this spring 619. Furthermore, a lever 621 is connected to the lifting shaft 610 and is rotatable around a shaft 620.
A cam guide 622 is formed at the other end of the lever 621.

623 is an eccentric disc-shaped cam driven by a motor 624 (see FIG. 5(B));
24, and a cam guide 622 maintains contact with its cam surface. However, motor 6
As the lever 24 rotates clockwise, the lever 62
1 around the shaft 620, the lifting shaft 61
0 can be moved up and down.

Furthermore, the output shaft 624A of the motor has a notch 631A.
A disc cam 633 having a notch 632A and a disc cam 634 having a notch 632A are coaxially fixed,
Notches 6 of these disc cams 633 and 634
31A and 632A can operate position detection switches 631 and 632 shown in FIG. 4, respectively. 631B and 632B are operating levers of switches 631 and 632, respectively.

635 is a cam guide 62 provided on the lever 621
This is a position detection switch arranged in relation to No. 2. The operating lever 635B of the switch 635 is always in contact with the top surface of the cam guide 622, and when the lever 621 is lifted by the cam 623 to the highest position as shown in the figure, that is, the pendulum stand 613 is at the lowest position. It detects this and operates when the

Furthermore, in FIG. 5A, 560 indicated by a broken line at the tip of the arm 551 is a pressing member, and the pressing member 560 is not directly provided at the tip of the arm 551, but is branched from the arm 551. The member 560 is loosely fitted into a support hole 561A provided at the tip of the branch arm 561, and a smooth surface is formed at the tip of the member 560.

The operation of this pressing member 560 will be described later, but it is used to remove air bubbles between the cover glass 518 and the slide glass 110 by its own weight and to diffuse the adhesive liquid. is brought to the bonding position 533A, the pressing member 560 and the branch arm 561 supporting it are in the bonding position 53A.
It is in a different retracted position from 3A.

Next, the adhesive sealing operation at the adhesive position configured as described above will be explained with reference to FIGS. 6A to 6F.

FIG. 6A shows the same state as shown in FIG. 5A, and in this state, the switch 635 (see FIG. 4) that detects the lowest position of the pendulum stand 613 is in the ON state. At the start of the adhesive enclosing operation, the motor 624 is driven to rotate each cam 623, 633, and 634, and the pendulum stand 613 is gradually raised via the lifting shaft 610.

Thus, as shown in FIG.
cam 634 at a point where one edge of slide glass 110 contacts or near the edge of cover glass 518.
When the notch 632A is detected by the detection switch 632, the motor 624 is stopped. Here, the relative positions of the switch 632 and the notch 632A are adjusted in advance in this manner. A slip stopper 613A is provided on the sloped edge of the top surface of the pendulum stand 613, and the slide glass 110 is prevented from sliding down due to the slip stopper 613A.
It is held in place on 3.

The state shown in FIG. 6B is maintained for a while, during which time the adhesive liquid 480A flows between the slide glass 110 and the cover glass 510 due to capillary action and the slope of the slide glass 110.
It is spread between. Subsequently, by stopping the supply of vacuum pressure to the suction disk 552 that has attracted the cover glass 518 by vacuum pressure, the cover glass 518 is gently tilted onto the surface of the slide glass 110, and the sixth As shown in FIG. C, it overlaps with the slide glass 110.

The suction disk 55 has finished supplying the cover glass 518
2 and its arm 551 are immediately retracted, and the branch arm 561 and the pressing member 560 provided at its end come to this position instead. Figure 6D
shows such a state, and the pendulum stand 613 and its elevating shaft 610 are maintained in a stopped state from when they are stopped in the state shown in FIG. 6B until they are brought to the state shown in FIG. 6D. . For example, the stop time during this period is 2
It is preferable to set the time to about 3 seconds.

After this set stop time, the motor 6
24 is driven, and the pendulum stand 613 continues to rise, but
When the notch 631A of the cam 633 coincides with the operating lever 631B of the position detection switch 631,
By keeping the cam guide 622 of the lever 621 at the lowest position by the eccentric disk cam 623, the pendulum stand 61
3 is kept at the highest level, and in this state, the motor 624 is stopped again by the switch 631.

FIG. 6E shows such a state, in which the pressing member 5
Since the axial center of the pendulum bar 60 is eccentric from the axial center of the pendulum bar 615, when the pressing member 560 lightly presses the cover glass 518 toward the slide glass 110 with its own weight, the pendulum stand 613 receives an eccentric load. It can be tilted slightly as shown. However,
This state is maintained for a while, for example, for 2 to 3 seconds.

After such a set stop time due to pressing operation,
The motor 624 is driven again to lower the pendulum stand 613 and move the slide glass 110 onto the transport path 210.
At the same time that the branch arm 561 supporting the pressing member 560 is returned to the top, the branch arm 561 that supports the pressing member 560 also returns to its original inclined state, and during this time, the branch arm 561 and the pressing member at its tip are moved via a link mechanism that operates the arm 551. . FIG. 6F shows a state in which the pendulum stand 613 and its elevating shaft 610 have returned to the position shown in FIG. 6A by driving the motor 624 after the sealing has been completed in this manner.

Thus, even if air bubbles remain in the state in which the cover glass 518 is stacked on the calide glass 110 (the state in FIG. 6C), the pressing operation during the above-mentioned stop time (the state in FIG. 6E) According to
Air bubbles can be released in all directions around the tip of the pressing member 560. Note that if the air bubbles are not removed sufficiently, the weight or the shape of the tip of the pressing member 560 may be changed, and it goes without saying that such adjustment is easy.

The slide glass 110 that has completed the adhesive encapsulation process by the adhesive device 600 described above is again moved along the transportation path 210 by the transportation device 200, and is pushed out to the product reservoir 710 of the storage device 700 shown in FIG. . When a predetermined number of glass slides as products accumulate in the product reservoir 710 (10 in this example), the extrusion mechanism 730 automatically pushes them out every 10 to the tray (receiving tray) 750. The glass slide enclosing work for one gang is completed with 40 products stored in the tray 750.

Furthermore, 800 is a control unit that controls a series of automatic sample enclosing operations using a microcomputer, and 810 is an operation panel thereof. The operation panel is equipped with a display, switches, various display means when an abnormality occurs, etc.
0, the specimen encapsulation device can be operated and its operation monitored. Note that 820 is a switch box equipped with a button switch for starting and stopping the specimen encapsulation device.

[Effects] As explained below, according to the present invention, the slide glass holder is provided below a predetermined position on the conveyance path along which the slide glasses to which the adhesive liquid is attached is continuously guided, and has a freely tiltable upper surface. a holder, a holder receiving member that pivots the slide glass holder and is movable up and down, and a suction board that waits above the predetermined position and suctions the top surface of the cover glass to hold the cover glass horizontally. a lifting means driven to raise the slide glass holding base via the holding stand receiving member each time the slide glass is guided to the predetermined position; Means for releasing the cover glass from the suction disk at the timing when the edge of the slide glass comes into contact with the edge of the cover glass by tilting the slide glass holder onto the upper surface as the slide glass holder rises; and erroneous release. and a means for driving the elevating means to return the slide glass to the predetermined position at the timing when the cover glass is supplied onto the slide glass by the means, so that the adhesive liquid on the slide glass is removed from the slide. The specimen can be diffused between the glass and the cover glass in a state suitable for specimen inclusion, and after the cover glass has fallen onto the slide from this state and the adhesive packaging process is completed, the slide glass holder can be held. Since the slide glass can be lowered via the support member, the slide glass can be returned to the predetermined position.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a perspective view showing an example of the configuration of the automatic specimen enclosing device of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a line diagram showing an outline of the discrimination device of the automatic specimen enclosing device as an example, and Fig. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the structure of the automatic specimen enclosing device. FIG. 4 is a plan view showing an example of a slide glass, and FIG.
and B are a front view thereof and a side view of its cam mechanism, and FIGS. 6A to 6F are explanatory diagrams showing the operations of the adhesive sealing device in order. 100... Shooter, 110... Slide glass, 111A, 111B... Specimen piece, 200...
Transport device, 210...Transport path, 300...Discrimination device, 310...Sensor array, 320...Printed circuit board, 330...Lens box, 340...Light emitter, 341...Slit, 342...Light blocking member,
342A...Vertical plate, 342B...Top surface, 343
...Lamp, 400 ...Liquid injection device, 480A
... Adhesive liquid, 500 ... Cover glass sorting and supply device, 510 ... Sorter, 511 ... Sorting section, 5
18...Cover glass, 530...Extraction mechanism, 5
50... Transfer mechanism, 551, 561... Arm, 552... Suction plate, 553, 553A... Position, 560... Pressing member, 561A... Support hole,
600... Adhesive device, 601... Case, 601
A...Top surface, 602...Bracket, 603...
Spring receiving member, 610... Lifting shaft, 611... Spline socket, 612... Pendulum support, 61
2A...Groove, 613...Slide glass holder,
613A... Anti-slip, 614... Roller bearing, 615... Pendulum bar, 616... Fixed pin,
617... Weight, 618... Angle adjustment member, 61
9...Spring, 620...Shaft, 621...Lever,
622...Cam guide, 623...Cam, 624
...Motor, 624A ...Motor shaft, 631,6
32...Position detection switch, 631A, 632A
... Notch, 631B, 632B ... Operating lever, 633, 634 ... Cam, 635 ... Switch, 700 ... Storage device, 710 ... Product reservoir,
730...Extrusion mechanism, 750...Saucer, 800
...Control unit, 810...Operation panel, 820...Switch box.

Claims (1)

[Claims for Utility Model Registration] Provided below a predetermined position on a conveyance path on which slide glasses to which adhesive liquid is attached are continuously guided,
a slide glass holder having a freely tiltable upper surface; a holder receiving member that pivots to support the slide glass holder and is movable up and down; a suction disk that holds the glass horizontally; a lifting means that is driven to raise the slide glass holder via the holder receiving member each time the slide glass is guided to the predetermined position; The slide glass guided by the slide glass is received and tilted onto the upper surface by the rise of the slide glass holder, and at the timing when the edge of the slide glass comes into contact with the edge of the cover glass, the cover glass is suctioned. A means for releasing the cover glass from the disk, and a means for driving the elevating means to return the slide glass to the predetermined position at the timing when the cover glass is supplied onto the slide glass by the release means. An automatic specimen encapsulation device featuring: