James_Ball wrote:benhutcherson wrote:
Wanted to FINALLY follow up on this one.
I got brave and pulled the it down to the quads. Once there, I cleaned the "springy" contacts themselves and also the place that they touch on the quads, then bent them a tiny bit to give better contact.
Once I pumped it all back down, everything worked beautifully. The coils dipped to a little under 700mV at 800m/z and the instrument tuned to 1600V on the EM.
As I type this, I'm waiting on my first test sample to come through it, and hopefully see some life fron an instrument that hasn't operated in 10+ years.
Congrats!
I have not had the quads out of a 5973 and up yet so wasn't sure how those connected. I know the same part used to be a weak link in the 5971/72 models and replaced those many times.
Thanks!
Honestly too the school where I am now doesn't know what to make of the fact that I just kind of walked in and did this.
They got a $10K quote a few years ago for Agilent to come out and set up "assuming we just have to hook it up". Considering that they didn't have a computer and what I've done has gone beyond just "hooking it up" I think they'd have spent a lot more than that with Agilent.
Also, they have a 5890+ TCD/FID that they've had for YEARS. The computer died a while back and they junked it, and they had removed the autosampler because apparently "it kept bending syringes." They had been using a stopwatch and the signal display for the FID on the front panel to collect RTs on compounds, but of course that doesn't give area. This one has an EPC packed column inlet-actually I think it has two of them-but the only one active is on the FID. Among other things, the ignitor hadn't worked in a long time, so I did an FID service and both improved sensitivity and got the ignitor working again(it was a bad ground-the nichrome wire was fine). The TCD isn't connected, but I need to explore it and see if it's dead or not.
In any case, I set up the autosampler again(it's fine) and I'm running the 5890 system off MSD Chemstation(I think James that you were the one who clued me in on doing that, and I like it better than the standard version of Chemstation). Once I can get a G1512A box, I'm likely transplanting the tray and tower to the 6890, although those are inexpensive enough these days that I'd be tempted to leave the 5890 autosampler intact.
I'm pretty sure I could install G1701DA-I have the install media, and have been told by someone who would know that my BA key will likely work. The only issue is that I'm not sure what 5890 support looks like on DA. Agilent's compatibility matrix says no, but I seem to vaguely recall that there's a simple-ish patch to get DA talking to a 5890(I know 5971/5972 support is a lot more complicated, although CA supports the 5972 on a 6890).
Longer term, though, or actually maybe with leftover budget money this year, I'm hoping to have Geoff with Great Lakes Technical(who's helped me get this working all along) come out and do the "low budget" JetDirect/SCIII LAN conversion and supply an E.02.02 install in Win10. He's told me about $6K(waiting on a formal quote) for the parts, labor, and software to do it.
On another note too, I've been trying to scrounge up an HPLC. I learned on an HP 1050, so that's my go-to choice. I asked Geoff about it in a conversation yesterday and he said that he'd really advise against putting time and money into a 1050 and instead going to an 1100. I spoke with another independent engineer out of Cinncinnatti who I respect a lot and who actually is the reason I like 1050s so much(convoluted story there) and he was a bit more...colorful...in telling me that it was a bad idea and instead to get an 1100. It sounds like that's where I'll be headed-I just need to find a budget system!(although I've been trying to negotiate some 5971 service for a 1050 from a school I'm very well tied into back in Kentucky-they just don't want to let go of their long-idle 1050 quite yet).