The PromethION 2 Solo is a small benchtop device designed to run up to two flow cells. Each flow cell is independently addressable, meaning that experiments can be run concurrently or individually. The PromethION 2 Solo plugs into a GridION Mk1 or user compute for real-time data streaming and analysis.

Component	Specification
Size and weight	152 x 110 x 87 mm, 1.5 kg
Mains supply voltage	100-240 VAC (50/60 Hz)
Peak power consumption	60 W
Installation ports	1x USB Type-C (3.0 at 5 Gps) 1x 12 VDC barrel power connector
Compute specification	N/A
Environmental conditions	Designed to sequence at +18ºC to +25ºC*

*Functional range of electronics +5ºC to +40ºC

Our PromethION 2 Solo FAQs are located here.

P2 Solo: First-time setup and hardware check

Our P2 Solo FAQs are located here.

• PromethION 2 Solo device
• 2x Configuration Test Cells (CTC)
• 60 W power adapter
• USB Type-C cable

LED lights There are two sets of LED lights on the device, five for each flow cell position. They display the following patterns:

• All five LEDs are solid white: Device ready, no flow cells inserted.
• All five LEDs are solid blue: Flow cells inserted.
• All five LEDs scroll green from left to right: Data acquisition in progress (this includes the hardware check and flow cell check).
• All five LEDs flash yellow: Temperature warning. If you observe this, check that your flow cell/CTC has a heat pad (black pad on the underside of the flow cell), and that the device is within ambient temperature range (+18°C to +23°C) with 30 cm clearance all around the instrument and away from direct sunlight. Then re-insert your flow cell and perform a flow cell check to check the temperature control. Contact Support if you continue to see this pattern.
• All five LEDs flash red: MinKNOW script error. Flashing alert that indicates that the script running has encountered and error and stopped. Contact Support if you continue to see this pattern.
• All five LEDs flash blue: Data transfer too slow between P2 solo and attached computer. If you see this, ensure that you are using the included USB-C cable (‘labelled P2’) and that you have inserted your cable into a super speed compatible port (USB 3.0 or greater). Additionally, ensure that no unnecessary USB devices are plugged into your computer.
• All five LEDs are solid green: Script ended successfully.

P2 Solo: First-time setup and hardware check

Our P2 Solo FAQs are located here.

• Place the P2 Solo and GridION devices on a strong, clean laboratory bench
• Ensure power connectors are in close proximity
• Ensure power socket is easily accessible should a disconnection be required in case of emergency
• Sequencing should be carried out at a room temperature of +18°C to +22°C with device lid closed prior to sequencing beginning
• Allow 30 cm clearance to rear and sides of the device
• Do not cover any ventilation grills
• WARNING - The rear of the device will heat up during operation

P2 Solo: First-time setup and hardware check

Our P2 Solo FAQs are located here.

• Place the P2 Solo device on a clean laboratory bench
• Ensure power connectors are in close proximity
• Ensure power socket is easily accessible should a disconnection be required in case of emergency
• Sequencing should be carried out at a room temperature of +18°C to +22°C with device lid closed prior to sequencing beginning
• Allow 30 cm clearance to rear and sides of the device
• Do not cover any ventilation grills
• WARNING - The rear of the device will heat up during operation

The MinKNOW software for the PromethION 2 Solo is available to download from the Software Downloads page on the Community.

All Oxford Nanopore devices use MinKNOW™ as the primary software. The MinKNOW software carries out several core tasks: data acquisition, real-time analysis and feedback, basecalling, data streaming, controlling the device, and ensuring that the platform chemistry is performing correctly to run the samples. MinKNOW takes the raw data and converts it into reads by recognition of the distinctive change in current that occurs when a DNA strand enters and leaves the pore. MinKNOW then basecalls the reads, and writes out the data into POD5 or FASTQ files.

Please follow the MinKNOW protocol for information on how to install the software.

The PromethION 2 Solo has no networking functionality. If using your own computer, please ensure it has internet connection (wired or wireless). The GridION uses a uses a 1x1 Gbps Copper interface for connecting to your local infrastructure. This has a single port with the IP address configured to DHCP by default (however static IPs are configurable). This connection will be used for:

• Sending telemetry* information to Oxford Nanopore Technologies.
• Receiving software and firmware updates to the device
• Streaming biological sequence data to your local storage infrastructure

To implement the PromethION 2 Solo into the local infrastructure, all appropriate cabling must be provided by the customer.

* Telemetry contains metadata about the settings and conditions of a sequencing run. Nothing specific about the genomic content of individual reads is included - only generic information is logged, such as sequence length and q-score.

For instructions on configuring your network, see the Network settings and connection section of the GridION user manual.

To validate that the IP address has been set correctly using a static or DHCP address, you can use the command: ifconfig

The returned information will contain the IP address (highlighted in bold) for the Ethernet link, as below:

prom@PRO00001:~$ ifconfig enp0s31f6 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 70:85:c2:4b:30:f5 inet addr:10.160.24.40 Bcast:10.160.24.255 Mask:255.255.255.0

P2 Solo: First-time setup and hardware check

Our P2 Solo FAQs are located here.

A loading bar will be displayed under the flow cell during the checks.

We strongly recommend performing a flow cell check before loading a DNA or RNA library to assess the number of pores available.

Oxford Nanopore Technologies will replace any flow cell that falls below the warranty number of active pores within 12 weeks of purchase, provided that you report the results within two days of performing the flow cell check and you have followed the storage recommendations.

Flow cell	Minimum number of active pores covered by warranty
Flongle Flow Cell (FLO-FLG001)	50
MinION/GridION Flow Cell	800
PromethION Flow Cell	5000

The quality of the flow cell will be shown as one of the three outcomes:

1. Yellow exclamation mark (Flongle flow cell): The number of sequencing pores is below warranty. Take the flow cell out of the device, re-insert it and run a flow cell check again. If the flow cell is still below warranty, contact support@nanoporetech.com

2. Green tick (MinION flow cell): The number of sequencing pores is above warranty.

3. Question mark (PromethION flow cell): A flow cell check has not been run on the flow cell during this MinKNOW session.

Note: The indicator of quality will only remain visible during a MinKNOW session. Once the MinKNOW session has ended, the status of the flow cell will be erased.

To run a sequencing experiment, you will need your DNA or RNA sample purified and a sequencing library prepared. For more information about sample preparation, refer to the Prepare section of our Documentation.

You can access the MinKNOW protocol by following this link.

It is essential that data is streamed from the device in real-time to prevent runs from terminating due to lack of storage space (this is common for high specification laptops). For this, a customer site must ensure that connectivity to the local infrastructure/external SSD is of sufficient bandwidth to prevent data backing up. We recommend using a remote server or network-attached storage (NAS). These typically offer a choice of NFS, SMB, or CIFS shares. If the workstation attached to the P2 Solo uses a Linux-based operating system, we recommend using NFS mounts due to the supported Linux user and group permissions. For Windows workstations, use SMB and for Mac OS use either SMB or NFS. To stream data to storage in real-time, SSD is required due to its high write speed compared to HDD. After initial writing to networked SSD drives, data can be moved to storage with a slower write speed for long-term storage.

The form and volume of data to be stored will depend on your requirements and whether you wish to basecall your sequencing data in the future when more advanced basecalling algorithms are available:

• Storing .POD5 files with raw read data in will permit re-basecalling of data when new algorithms are released by Oxford Nanopore Technologies. In such cases, new releases of basecallers have enabled significant improvements in basecalling accuracy of existing datasets through re-basecalling. Further, selected Oxford Nanopore and third-party tools use the raw signal information contained within the POD5 to extract additional information from the raw signal, e.g. calling modified bases, reference-guided SNP calling, or polishing of data.
• Retaining only FASTQ files will allow use of standard downstream analysis tools using the DNA/RNA sequence, but no further sequence data can be generated when improvements in basecalling become available.

Oxford Nanopore is unable to provide exact recommendations for storage, as these will be site-specific.

GridION: Data offload to remote storage

Our device FAQs are located here.

If you are using a P2 Solo in combination with a GridION and require additional SSD storage, ensure you are using the correct USB port/Ethernet on the rear of the device. Do NOT use either the USB port with a white, rectangular centre or those at the front of the device (if your GridION has front-facing USB ports).

Instead, use the blue USB Type-A ports on the rear of the GridION (see the image below for reference). Alternatively if using Ethernet, ensure that you are using a cable capable of at least 1 Gbps (CAT5e) and the minimum length for reduced latency.

Please refer to the GridION user manual or MinKNOW protocol update sections.

For GridION:

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/p2-testing.list /etc/apt/preferences.d/p2-testing
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ont-gridion-release
sudo poweroff

For standalone Linux computers For the new automatic GPU release (recommended):

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/p2-testing.list /etc/apt/preferences.d/p2-testing
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ont-standalone-minknow-gpu-release
sudo poweroff

For the release without the automatic GPU configuration:

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/p2-testing.list /etc/apt/preferences.d/p2-testing
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ont-standalone-minknow-release
sudo poweroff

Our PromethION 2 Solo FAQs are located here.

For the PromethION 24/48, PromethION 2i, GridION and PromethION 2 Solo connected to a GridION:

• Click Export in the Export Logs section.

When you have successfully exported the logs, you will be notified of where they are located below the button. The logs will be downloaded as a TGZ file in the logs directory.

You can change the location of the logs by using the file manager, where you can easily retrieve them without needing SSH:

• Click on the file next to Logs exported to: in the Export Logs panel. This will open where the logs are located in the File Manager of MinKNOW.
• Use the control panel in the lower right corner of the File Manager to move the log files.

If the PromethION 2 Solo is connected to a stand-alone computer

Log files for each sequencing experiment can be found in:

• Windows C:\data\logs

• Mac OS X /private/var/log/MinKNOW

• Linux /var/log/minknow

In the "Help" page, click Clean up in the Clean Up Files section and confirm in the in the pop-up.

Note: Run data will not be deleted. Logs and temporary data will be removed.

Click Run repair in the troubleshooting section of the Help page and confirm in the pop-up. MinKNOW will attempt to repair the following issues:

• Ensure required directories under "/data" exist and have the correct ownership and permissions
• Ensure required files under "/data" have the correct ownership and permissions
• Ensure the GPU is working at maximum performance
• Ensure that Bluetooth is disabled