What have you done for your HPLC today?

Off-topic conversations and chit-chat.

8 posts Page 1 of 1
There are seemingly a zillion and a half threads on what's going wrong with our LC's and the methods we develop with them, but I have yet to see a thread on how we show our love to our faithful instrumentation, so here it is.

What have you done for your HPLC (or GC or MS) today?

I'll start: On my $300 eBay refugee Waters 996 photodiode array detector (that's been running without a hiccup for a year), I've replaced the flow cell gaskets & lenses, the L1 beam splitter, the M1 mirror, the lamp, and the little foam filter media thingy. I've aligned the mirror, checked the lamp energy & wavelength accuracy, then run all onboard diagnostics. While doing this, I found a screw with crossed threads holding in the M1 mirror; now repaired.

The lamp energy quadrupled from where it had been, all onboard diagnostics passed, and wavelength accuracy was spot on.

Now to qualify the beast.
http://the-ghetto-chromatographer.blogspot.com/
Love the blog! You've won a new, dedicated reader.
juddc, although nearly all of my experiences with service engineers have been great, I really wish you were a service engineer visiting my lab.
All I seem to do for my LC systems is keep changing the solvents. But I honestly believe that LC systems are like toilets: if regularly and carefully flushed, they remain much happier.
Replaced all check valves, inline filters, a good 25% IPA flush, and played it's favorite song! (If you show your machine love it will produce beautiful chromatography) :D :D :D

-Tim
Purged with ACN/water, changed valves and loops flushing solvents, switched off completely, and finally wished a lot of running hours in a new year ;-)
HPLC 2017 in Prague, http://hplc2017-prague.org/
Hi folks - thanks for all of the positive comments! If you're interested, I've posted the procedure I used for replacing the mirror and beam splitter on my old 996. After doing that I was able to get a 500% improvement in lamp energy. It still won't give what new instrument will, but given that it's 20 years old, I bet I've gotten a few more years out of it.

Any comments, criticisms, or questions are welcome!
http://the-ghetto-chromatographer.blogspot.com/
Rebuilding a flow cell is no mean feat. Good job!

I just got my 2695 a new loop because mine brittle-fractured.
Thanks,
DR
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DR wrote:
Rebuilding a flow cell is no mean feat. Good job!

I just got my 2695 a new loop because mine brittle-fractured.



I've never seen a 2695 do that, though I can understand how it could.
Rebuilding the flow cell wasn't bad. I learned how to do it after I clogged one on an instrument that was on a service contract. Waters sent a new unit and I had the clogged one, so I took it apart and got lucky enough to clear the clog, so I ordered the parts to rebuild and made up a spare.

A friend of mine just bought a second hand 2695 that I'll be refurbishing soon and I'm really looking forward to it!
http://the-ghetto-chromatographer.blogspot.com/
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