Checking continuity of filaments in 5970

[James_Ball]

EM Volts is set in the tune window for the multiplier voltage. It will not display anything but 0 in the instrument control window until it begins scanning after the solvent delay in a run.

The Fault 8 No Emission Current is usually a blown filament but can be any other reason that it won't power the filaments. I can't remember if on the 5970 there is a switch for EI/CI or if that was introduced on the 5971, but if it is set to EI and it senses too much load on the filaments when it tries to fire them up, it will assume that the pressure in the analyzer chamber is too high and shut down the filament to prevent it from burning out. If it has he switch you can flip it to CI and it bypasses the check, but I am pretty sure that is only on the 5971(it has been 20 years since I had a 5970).

Other question is why would you turn off the turbo pump when not using the instrument? They don't pull nearly as much current as the rough pump so it is best to just leave them on all the time and warmed up so the vacuum stays at optimal levels. Spinning the turbo pump up and down wears them out faster than just leaving them running full speed.

[mckrause]

James is correct. The Fault 8 is a latch-up state on the 5970; it gets set when there is a general fault of any kind.

You can clip the pressure sensor resistor on the 5970 to eliminate the system shutdown if overpressure occurs. Some of the newer 5970's had a switch (EI/CI); the older ones did not.

We never, ever turned off our turbos on the 5970s. Fastest way to kill those turbos was to power them up and down.

5970 software has a EM minimum of 1200V. I've never seen one tune at less than 1400, and that is with a brand new SGE EM; typical tunes run in the 1500-2000V range.

You may have a faulty software load; you had to occasionally blow away the old 5970 software and reload. I'd wipe the disk, reinstall Win 95 or 98 (you can use up to 98 SE2) and then reinstall a clean copy of the MS software. Make sure when you do this you re-seat the interface board; they were a bit buggy.

[osp001]

Just a quick update- thanks to the advice here and elsewhere (particularly from James), I've overcome several issues including a turbo pump controller failure, and finally got this tonight.



How's it look? (Apologies- that's the best of about a dozen images. Too blurry without the flash.)

Next step is to hook it up to the GC (after having solved- I think- the autoinjector issues).

[James_Ball]

Excellent! I know it has been a long road but looks like it paid off

[mckrause]

For a '70 that's a great tune! Looks like you have a pretty sweet box - always did like those metal quads.