Agilent HP 6890 Mainboard, Firmware, Chemstation Problems

[Schmudde]

Dear fellow Chemist's,

my very old HP 6890 could'nt be restart. In the Booting-Phase the power supply will shut down.
After checking the circuit boards, I had noticed that one of the condenser is broken. But I've some spare parts from a slidly newer HP 6890 in Backup.

Now comes my question: did you now if, it's possible to change the mainboard from an "G1530-60010 Rev A DIV 43" to an "G1530-60011 Rev B DIV 2340" without any trouble?

Update: I had a call with the Agilent Service Hotline. They ask me about the Model No. Both GC`s are HP G6890A one has a MSD configuration and the other has a FID cofiguration. But they could'nt say to me if the two mainboards are changeble. Now i got an troubleshooting ticket.

If I get some new information i will post it here.

[Schmudde]

I got some new informations. There are 3 Versions of the HP6890, the "A" version, the "P or Plus" version and the "N or Networked" version. My damaged and my backup GC are a HP 6890A, except the mainboard of the backup system is a mainboard from a HP 6890P.

Mainboard - G1530-60010 Rev A DIV 43 > HP 6890A
Mainboard - G1530-60011 Rev B DIV 2340 > HP 6890P

The mainboards from the "A" and "P" versions are compatible but the mainboard from the "N" versions is not.

Now that I have succesful changed the mainboards pops up a new problem.

The GC and the Chemstation did'nt communicate with each other. I will list all important parameter and hope somebody have a clue how to solve the problem.

- PC > Win2k
- GC > HP 6890 / G1530A
- GC Firmware > A.03.08
- MS > HP 6890 MSD / Model: 5972A
- Chemstation > B.01.00
- Connection > HPIB RS232

I hope there is someone who can help.

[James_Ball]

I have never connected one with serial port, only the HPIB cable. Are you sure the connection is serial and not the heavy HPIB cable?

If the HPIB cable is used you have to make sure the address is set correctly which is probably a set of switched on the board.

When there is a 5972MSD installed there is an RS232 cable connected from the GC to the MSD at the "Remote" ports on each, which allows the start signal to synchronize between the two instruments, but it does not send communications other than that.

[Schmudde]

Hello James_Ball,

you're correct it is a HPIB cable. I have corrected the mistake for following replys.

I tried to change to the correct adress, but there was no connection between Chemstation B.01.00 and GC6890. The Chamstion say that the GC is offline and so on the GC did not go in remote controle.

I hope there will be a solution. This old GC is our most reliable GC Instrument

[benhutcherson]

I have never connected one with serial port, only the HPIB cable. Are you sure the connection is serial and not the heavy HPIB cable?

If the HPIB cable is used you have to make sure the address is set correctly which is probably a set of switched on the board.

The 6890 address is set from the front panel. It's kind of a nice change from having to pull the side panel off the 5890 to change it.
(I'm bringing a 6890/5973 back to life now).

I tried to change to the correct adress, but there was no connection between Chemstation B.01.00 and GC6890. The Chamstion say that the GC is offline and so on the GC did not go in remote controle.

Are you using Chemstation or MSD Chemstation?

They are two different pieces of software, and the way you set the address in standard Chemstation is a bit weird and not necessarily intuitive. I fought with a 5890 for a week before I tried something as just a "heck, I don't have anything to lose" and it worked...and a lot of the folks who use to be on top of this stuff have not dealt with setting up an HPIB system from scratch in a while.

In addition, whether in standard Chemstation or MSD Chemstation, there is a very specific way the interface card has to be set up in the IO libraries, and it won't work if you don't have it set exactly correct.

[Schmudde]

Hi everyone,

first I like to say thanks for the input.

Yesterday was a field service engineer in our lab and he got the problem solved.
@benhutcherson you are right we needed to change the gpib adress in the GC menu, but i couldnt find the right one. I learned that I had the gpib adress for the MS-Modul but needed the one for the GC...
Next problem was that there was a failure on the driver level too. The failure massage was called "activate_sicl" error. The engineer reinstalled the driver and the chemstation B01.00...
After that journey there was one last problem with the IO Library...
For oure 82350 PCI GPIB Card was the default setting

• SICL-Name: hp82341
• Logical Unit: 7
• Bus Adress: 21

but the Bus Adress needed to be 30!

Summary:

• driver failure > reinstallation of driver and Chemstation
• GPIB adress for GC > 15
• IO Config > GPIB0: 82350 PCI GPIB Card; SICL Name: hp82341; Local Unit: 7; Bus Adress: 30

Now is our GCMS 6890 working again and I'm happy. I hope this will help if someone else has this trouble in the future.

Best Regards
Schmudde

[Consumer Products Guy]

Yes, I remember it being a little strange, even though I have terribly little understanding of this stuff.

82350 PCI GPIB Card had to be entered as "hp82341" and Bus Address had to be entered as 30