Elchrom Origins - (Oct/15/2012 )

Does anybody has experience with the Elchrom Origins electrophoresis apparatus? We use it now but have some trouble to get clear and thin bands...
We use PCR samples of 90-300 bp (depending on primers) in single-plex reactions and use the precast Spreadex wide-mini gels with 2x25 slots. For every expected product size we use different gel types that fit to the product size. We use the apparatus strictly according to the recommendations (10 V/cm, 55°C, 30 mM TAE, 4 uL sample in 1 uL LB, etc, running time according to software specifications, EtBr staining after run).
Actually we need about 2 bp resolution and so far we're happy to get 10 bp or more, because the bands are very broad and sometimes look distorted too.
We changed several parameters (cleaning up PCR samples to remove salt, different DNA amounts, different gel types) but so far nothing worked.

you'll have to pour your own gels using agarose formulated for high resolution (keep in mind that you may be able to get 2bp resolution with smaller fragments but not with larger)

with metaphor agarose you can separate dna with 2% difference in size.

nusieve agarose, agarose 1000 and agarose ms are also good for low mw separations.