James_Ball wrote:
mburleson wrote:
I had this error one time and eventually gave in and called an engineer in. They trimmed a little off the column and it worked again. I never understood that, but then again, I also wasn't the one who installed said column, haha.


The end of the column should only extend 1-2mm past the tip of the transfer line, much longer and it sits in the ion chamber of the source and interferes with the ionization of the analytes. The best way I found to get a good depth of installation was to place a column scoring wafer flat side against the end of the transfer line tip and slide the column in until it touches. Then remove the wafer and tighten the column interface nut. The little bit it moves the column inwards as you tighten will be 1mm or a little less and is perfect.


That's a good method! That's not too different than how I do it personally. Our column that I replied about was installed by my predecessor (no fault of his own - he wasn't trained to do it but had to). I really like Agilent's self-tightening nut for the MSD inlet.