Chromatography Forum

Agilent 1290 Pump Leak Rate Test failure: I have an Agilent 1290 Binary Pump that consistently fails the Pump Leak Rate Test. Testing @1200 bar with 100% IPA. "A" side is fine. "B" secondary passes, and primary starts out OK, but after a few seconds, the pressure drops ~300bar, then goes back up to 1200, leaving a v-shaped notch in the top of the trace. I have tried sonicating the check valves, repeated purging; nothing seems to work. Any suggestions?

Sounds like the piston seals may be worn out. Do you visually 'See' a leak anywhere (i.e. MP valve, under pump heads).

@Multidimensional,
please don't speculate if you are not sure.

@NickW,
first has all the other test leak passed on the Agilent LabAdvisor, if yes then there is no issue. I believe you are running the Leak Rate Test using Agilent LabAdvisor. When performing the Leak Rate Test on Secondary Pump Head there is no issue as the Pressure is able to maintain at 1000Bar. once it has completed that part the Pump will release the pressure and rebuild the pressure in Primary Pump Head. At this moment the Pump should only Pressurize up to 800 Bar. Instead of 800 Bar the Pump actually exceed the Pressure limit and Pressure up to 1200 Bar which cause this issue. This is the a Software Bug. as long as all the other pressure test passes there shouldn't be big issue.

Newby, I never speculate. Advice is based on many years of professionally servicing these modules. Without additional information, no clear diagnosis can be made.