Hi,
    I think calling tech support would be a good idea to make sure there is nothing
terribly wrong with the instrument. Just a few things you could check before
calling though would be the tube on the side of the mechanical arm. Often the tube
catches air bubbles, (that is what it is for) if it does the assembly comes off
with two screws. At one end is a syringe, if you pull it back it will pull the
bubble into the chamber then turn the yellow valve 90 degrees to the front. Then
push the bubble out. Make sure you turn the valve back to the down position then
put the assembly back on the mechanical arm and screw the bolts back into place.
    Also, you could run a clean cycle. While the instrument runs watch the probe.
Make sure it goes directly into the cleaning holes. This will tell you if the
instrument is mis-aligned. I'd also go over the program "with a fine toothed comb"
just to be sure the machine was programmed right. It never hurts to be sure.
Amos Brooks

Charnell.E.Jones@questdiagnostics.com wrote:

> The IHC department at our laboratory has been experiencing several difficulties
> with their DAKO autostainer, and wanted me to see if anyone else in histoland
> has had these problems and what they did to correct them besides the obvious of
> contacting Technical support. The autostainer is not applying reagents within
> the racks. For example 3 of the 12 slides may not be stained with the
> hematoxylin.  Also, there is carry-over. These problems have been occuring with
> no error messages on the run log. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Charnell E. Jones, B.S., HTL(ASCP)