equipment recommendations please

[momo]

Hi everyone,

My first post here. We are an academic lab and wish to purchase one analytical and one preparative system. Both are for general purpose - we work on short peptides, long peptides, small molecules, polymers, and proteins. We are most concerned with 1) performance 2) reliablility 3) software friendliness and 4) after-sales service.

Which analytical system do you recommend? Waters UPLC, Agilent RRLC, Shimadzu UFLC, or something else?

And which preparative system do you recommend? Waters Alliance, Agilent 1200, Shimadzu Prominence, GE, or something else?

I have read all the brochures and on-line information for these models. I have also talked with many sales reps. But I'm still uncertain how to proceed with the purchase. Your advice is very much appreciated. It would be most helpful if you gave specific reasons or specific examples.

Cheers,
ck

[Bruce Hamilton]

The most critical issue for any scientific equipment is vendor support to your location. Most of the other items can be overcome by training, planned maintenance and experience. I assume you don't already have some HPLCs nearby with software that people already know?. If you do, you need good reasons to change, as training is time-consuming.

All of the instruments presumably have the ability to perform the tasks you require, but you really want to talk to local users of equipment from each of the short-listed suppliers.

You should ask each potential supplying company to give you the names of 2-3 users ( all of whom should be satisfied with that vendor's equipment and support ).

Don't expect the users to say the product is rubbish, but they will give you some pointers as to what is fragile and should be watched, and may tell you why they chose that product - especially the issues of software useability, reliability, and local support.

If a supplier can not give you the name of some satisfied local users, then decide whether you really can afford to have an orphan instrument with potential downtime for repairs,a decision that will depend on the planned use of the instruments.

Please keep having fun,

Bruce Hamilton

[Bryan Evans]

I think it's a good idea to ask yourself - What type of columns will I be using? If the analytical columns you intend to use
are 3 & 5um particle size, than you don't need to spend the extra money on a system that can handle extreme pressures.

After that, than i'd look at price, software compatibility, customer support for your region, ect.

[DR]

^ kiind of what I was thinking... going from UPLC to prep may not be a whole lot of fun, so I'd probably look at the Alliance series from Waters instead of UPLC, aside from that, I don't think there's really a bad way to go from among the vendors listed. It will come down to (probably not in this order) cost, service (cost, speed, competency in your area), data system (if there is one) compatibility with your instruments.

From that, all I can suggest is that I would expect Waters and Agilent to be on the high cost end for service contracts, their instruments will be at least fairly if not totally compatible with nearly any CDS that offers instrument control.

[wrxtotoro]

I think the Breeze HPLC from waters would be more suitable for academic lab. The software is easier to use then Empower and you probably won't need all those GMP tracking features of Empower.

[AdrianF]

I think it would be worth giving Dionex a look. They have a system optimised for proteins and peptides.

Their Chromeleon software has been highly rated on this forum for ease of use, though I have not used it myself.

[gavinolm]

Well I agree with what the first few guys said. You definetly want a vendor who is going to support you and your equipment as the equipment "breaks-in".

If you are building up a lab, and have no vendor change over issues then your options are much greater. However as mentioned before if you have an old system limping along with half way new software then it may be worth your time to stay with the same vendor, considering the amount if time to get used to the new software, from what I remember Chemstation has always been pretty similar.

If your selling point is a more flexible system, running both prep and analytical you should let your reps know that and ask to get in touch with teir service rep to see just how easy the system is to go from analytical to prep and visa versa.

The following are HPLC vendors: Dionex, Agilent, Waters, Shimadzu, Perkin elmer, Beckman-Coulter, Hitachi, Varian, Thermo Electron.

I know Chemstation and have heard Empower can be pretty hard to work with sometimes. I don;t know about the other software, I do know that Dionex's Chromeloen was easier to use and is compatible with other insturments from diffeent vendors.

I think, I'm not sure though, but I hear Dionex's HPLC system is easier to change from prep to anayltical and visa versa.

Good luck, I hope you enjoy whatever system you decide on.