NextSeq 550 Flowcell Notes

Some folks seemed to find the MiSeq flowcell notes I recently posted useful. So I decided to take a closer look at a NextSeq 550 flowcell (donated by Graham Wiley) and see if there were any surprises there.

There were surprises… and confusion.

Here are a few quick pictures of the outer features of the flowcell and the gasket. All pretty standard stuff:

Unlike the MiSeq the NextSeq gasket isn’t modeled in place, it just kind of sits there. It interfaces with an aperture on the flowcell. This is much larger than that in the MiSeq (~1.4mm diameter here):

The weirdness comes with the flowcell itself.