Varian 1200L Triple Quad

Discussions about GC-MS, LC-MS, LC-FTIR, and other "coupled" analytical techniques.

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I have a Varian 1200L LC triple quad on which I need a little "seasoned operator" advice, since Agilent no longer supports this instrument and seems to not have anyone there that has been brought on from Varian who knows the instrument, and very litttle experience in my lab with anything other than running routine samples (no real maintenance needed in the couple years it was run and then shelved before I started using it). My questions, if you have and currently run (or can recall from running it) are:

When the instrument is pumped down, what is your usual manifold pressure without the CID gas on? I'm seeing 4E-6 Torr with a 40 C manifold temperature, which I think is fine (the hardware manual says to wait to operate the instrument after reaching 5 E-6).

What speed does your turbo pump run at, and how long does it take to spin up from 0 to 90%? My turbo runs at 97-98%, and I've never seen it run at 100%.

If I try to set the manifold temperature above 50 C, the turbo pump speed drops from about 97-98% at 40C to about 85% or lower, and I can't get the manifold temperature to rise above 54-55 C no matter what setpoint I enter (max 65 C). At 55 C, the vacuum pressure rises to 6.5 to 6.7E-6 Torr and I start to see a pressure reading in the CID gas (Q2) region of about 0.15-0.2 mTorr. Is this the usual situation with this instrument, or is this indicative of a vacuum (or other) problem? Is there any benefit to running hotter or colder than the recommended 42 C?

Is there an optimal temperature for the housing? I'm running ESI, and I have the option to run at 18-65C, but I don't know if there's an optimum (besides the recommended 50 C in the hardware manual).

Any tips/tricks/advice is appreciated!
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Bumping my own thread. Hoping to get some feedback from people who have current or former experience with the Varian 1200L triple quadrupole MS used in LCMS mode.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Out of interest, what is the serial number of this instrument?
What version of workstation are you running?
Are you actually observing any issues with the system?
What country are you in?

The normal specs for the turbo are 100% (+/- 1%), so you are just outside of this range.

My only concern may be that your turbo is overheating slightly, so by increasing the manifold temperature you are causing the turbo to heat even more. Some have a safety feature to slow the turbo down if it's over heating, so you may be seeing this.

You might be able to click on the turbo 'picture' and find out it's temperature depending on the model and software you are running.

As for temperatures, the manifold temperature only really effects the RF stability so I would leave at 42. The heaters are only small, so might not be able to heat to maximum.

The API housing is defaulted to 50 deg and I've never seen anyone use anything different, so stick with this.
Bruker (and Varian) Engineer happy to give advice on GC, GCMS and LCMS products.
I'm running Varian MS Workstation 6.9, service pack 1. I'll re-post with the instrument serial number when I get to work later today. I know it's one of the "2000 and higher" serial numbers. *EDIT - Serial Number 03398.*

I don't have a turbo temperature stat when I click on the turbo picture, only statistics start date (10 May 2006), number of hours on the turbo (11300), number of starts (63), last spin up time to 90% (6.28 min), and current speed (97%).

I'm in the US.

Am I seeing issues? Good question. One of my favorite quotes comes from former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, where he stated "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." I think I fall into the "known unknowns" and possibly the "unknown unknowns" category.

I have an inkling that I'm not getting the best performance from this instrument, but that stems mainly from not being able to reproduce a particular application note from Varian (direct injection of carbamate pesticides), difficulties in achieving the reserpine S/N specs (not sure if I'm using the right concentration or instrument settings or procedure, having never actually seen it done by anyone), and a problem that occurred the one time we tried to use the APCI source, where we zeroed the corona needle current via the procedure described in the APCI manual, but then we were not able to set the corona current to a desired setpoint - it would jump to a different value, usually higher. After re-installing the ESI source, I got arcing from the needle to the shield area, and ever since my needle optimizes somewhere around 1000-2500V depending on my conditions. Could there be some sort of problem with the voltage being delivered to the needle, and if so, is there a way to fix this?

Other symptoms of less-than-optimal performance are that the turbo occasionally drops out to about 93-95%, for reasons unknown to me. I've contacted Agilent, and they have nothing for me on this instrument except for the few manuals that they still carry on their website. They have a part number for an OQ/PQ for the 1200L, and I inquired about it, but was told that it is a service they do not in fact offer. If the turbo is overheating, is there a remedy for this, or is there a way to cool it externally, or is there some sort of cooling fan on the instrument that acts to help dissipate heat?

Also, when I tune the instrument, I don't get any errors, but I need to use a higher flow rate in negative than in positive (20uL/min versus 10) in order to get enough signal for the high masses, and I'm not sure if I'm getting reasonable tuning results (right abundances/ratios of masses?). In fact, last time I tuned I decided to create a custom tune profile using PPG, and I re-optimized my capillary voltages for each tune mass, and got different optimized capillary voltages than what is found in the Autotune profile for masses 59 and 442.3 (145 versus 100 for 59, 50 versus 30 for 442.3) in positive mode, and IIRC the needle voltage optimized around 2500-3500V, not the 5000V that the Autotune is set for. Were there any specs available from Varian regarding tune mass abundance targets, or ratios of one mass to another?
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
I hate to say it, but it sounds like this instrument needs a proper checking by someone who knows these instruments.

There must be ex-Varian engineers floating around who would perform a PM for reasonable money.

The turbo % is potentially something worth investigating. It does appear you have sub-optimum performance. It could be the turbo itself or the turbo controller, these have been known to do odd things.

As for cooling, there are generally two cooling fans, one on the side and one on the bottom. During a PM I would take the covers off and blow these out or clean with a new paintbrush. They can get very dusty in a lab and may not be cooling properly.

The voltage to the capillary is via a HV power supply. These go quite frequently, although I normally see some more major problems, like no voltage at all, or a flat line (it also supplies the detector).

Not sure on tuning specs, sounds like you have all the correct documents.
Bruker (and Varian) Engineer happy to give advice on GC, GCMS and LCMS products.
Hello! I am also operating a Varian 1200 Triple Quad and a very strange behaviour is observed the last days. Initially at the time of the injection, vacuum was going off, but now after replacing rf board, power board, 2 turbo pumps, 4 turbo controllers, 2 ion gauge and 2 rough pumps, the behaviour changed slightly and vacuum goes off imidiatelly regardless of whether an injection was done by the autosampler or not. The only thing that remains always the same is the high manifold temperature, which is steadily higher that normal (instead of about 40 degrees, it is around 59 degrees), yet by physically observing the temperature it does not seem to be so high! Also electronics diagnostics show that manifold heater is ok and all these make me think that for some reason there may be a wrong reading of the real temperature and the controller turns the pumps off for safety reasons. Any idea about the underlying problem? Thanks in advance!
Hi, just got an lc/ms/ms Varian 210 prostar + 1200l. Need the software+license, which I believe should be MS Workstation 6.4 to 6.9. Happy to pay for it. My email is mancival@me.com
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