Incubator

Claim 1

In an incubator for use in an analyzer, said incubator comprising a stationary incubator surface above which test elements are moved while being held in assigned test element stations; a rotor including holding means for holding test elements at said stations; means for rotating said rotor about an axis, including drive means and means for connecting said rotor to said drive means, said connecting means including bearing means for providing relative rotation between said rotor and said stationary surface; said holding means including a lower support mounted to slide above said stationary surface and a cover member, a test element being sandwichable between said lower support and said cover member; and reading means fixed in said incubator for scanning a test element held in said holding means, one of said lower support and said cover member having an aperture to allow a scanning beam to pass through to a test element held by said holding means; the improvement wherein said stationary surface includes three reference surfaces comprising a fraction of said stationary surface and positioned a predetermined distance along said axis so to project above said surface, one of said reference surfaces being circumferentially positioned adjacent said aperture to insure proper reading distance for test elements read by said reading means, said lower support being mounted so as to movably bear on said reference surfaces; and wherein said bearing means is free to move in a direction parallel to said axis, whereby said reference surfaces and not said bearing means determine the distance along said axis of test elements held by said holding means at said read station.