tuning differences between Agilent and Thermo

[-cla-]

Hi all,

I'm coming from a total Agilent background (mass spec, primarily 5977A/B, 5975C with 7890 GCs) in environmental and have recently started working in a new industry, our lab only uses Thermo instruments. I've been trying to help out the new chemists with some instrument troubleshooting but I don't have much background on Thermo when it comes to settings, ratios and abundances to look out for.

Does anyone have any helpful resources I can read to learn more about Thermo Mass Specs (we have ISQ7000 and TSQ9000). I'm looking at a tune report from our ISQ7000 and noticing that the 69 abundance is at 64million, which to me seems insanely high coming from looking at Agilent Tune reports. Our chemist states that Thermo doesn't suggest cotton gloves for re-assembling the source after cleaning, which is also not in line with practices I'm familiar with. I'd really just like to gain as much knowledge about this system as I possibly can.

For background, we are working with cannabis as a matrix and we analyze residual solvents and terpenes on this instrument.

Thank you!

[mathieu_stability]

Hi Cla

The philosophy of MS tuning is very different between instruments from Thermo and Agilent.
As I recall for an agilent GCMS, the EM voltage is adjusted to produce approx. 400000 abundance counts for either mass 69 or 219.
For a Thermo ISQ (maybe software dependent ) , the tune page allows the operator to set both a gain value , typically 300000 on mass 100, as well as setting a target mass and intensity value , typically 20000000 for mass 69.

Also the two companies have very different approaches to source cleaning.
You mentioned to use of gloves.
The other i remember from LCMS training in San Jose was the use of California tap water as an initial wash of source parts...

[fragc2000]

Hi, what kind of the cartridge source do you have?