I'm trying to decide on a new automated perfusion system for my whole-cell patch rig. I have a couple that I'm seriously considering.

Has anyone got much experience with AutoMate scientific or ALA scentific equipment?

Any thoughts/comments of reliablility, customer service and integration with pClamp9.2 would be great.

We use the Eppendorf FemtoJet fast perfusion system in our lab. Works just fine. I am not sure about its integration with pClamp 9.2, but we use it with pClamp 8 and it hasn't given us any problems.

I use the (old) ALA DAD-VM together with pClamp 8. The software has to be run on two different computers, and the only way of integration is a trigger signal that can be sent from the pClamp software to the DAD hardware which allows for synchronization of the superfusion with the recording. Although the handling is not great, it does all the tricks it has to do (with a little creativity on the experimentator's side).