chemstation wrote:Yep, and when you vent the system, they don't start up again,
(that was before we got service contracts, which may be an idea
, as unlike stupid medical insurance, pre-existing conditions are covered!)
Alex
hehehe well that is only true to a point, usually Agilent would send an engineer in to look over the system going under contract and if the turbo is squealing unholy terror I'm pretty sure it might be a sticking point
. They'd probably offer you a big discount on that repair though.
drste73 wrote:
Hi
As it happens I've contacted Pfeiffer, they were very helpful and i'm just in the process of packaging the pump up to send down to them - they quoted about 600 GBP and promised a 7 day turn around time !
Thanks for all your help !
Thats great
just so you know the normal life time of a turbo pump is definitely NOT 18 months. I've seen systems 8+ years old still running on their original turbo. You have to treat them gently though, try not to run overly concentrated samples and be sure to monitor your vacuum level in order to not be running the turbo with a big leak.
I once worked with a guy who let the analyzer door sit open for an entire afternoon because he was trying to pump down and didn't realize you need to put a bit of pressure on the door when starting up to get a good seal. The rough pump oil was black and thankfully the turbo shuts down after a few minutes if sufficiently low vacuum from the rough pump isn't established. Still probably not good for it!
The other no-nos are venting while the blades are still turning or power cycling while the pump is running any more frequently than 'RARE' heheh. You can reboot the smart card from the front panel of the instrument so there should be very few reasons for power cycling the whole MS (even with the smart card rebooting the AC board is still providing power to the turbo.)