Chromatography Forum

Well, just to keep everyone up-to-date:

I fished out the stainless steel tubing, figuring "If I break it, I break it; it doesn't work now, so here goes." I got the inlet out of the instrument so that I could really have a go at it. The plate I thought was brass was really just stained and burned stainless steel, because it didn't bend or scratch as I pried around it. The tubing didn't break or fold. After pulling off all the insulation, I figured out how to manipulate everything around to get it apart and out. And once the vile thing was removed from the instrument I could really see what was going on.

The sensor wires broke right as the entered the ceramic (?) part of the sensor. Being as old as it was (original, maybe) the ceramic crumbled as I tried to pry it out. After some work, I now have a clean heat sink that looks nothing like any of the inlets in the service manual. Who knows where this Frankenstein's monster of a GC came from...

Now all I have to do is put it back together. Anyone need a new heater for a split/splitless or FID? Because I think I'll just use the old heater, and the new sensor.

Victory at last! (Or so it seems.)

-Greg

Great work. I was beginning to think that these days nobody ever got further than changing an inlet liner without making a service call

Peter

It sounds like you may have a very early 5890. Injectors and detectors were changed after a year or two to an upgraded design.

In 2006, I bought an AMP extraction tool from Agilent #8710-1542, like $57.

According to the guy from Alpha Omega (5890.com), what we have is a EPC inlet, even though we run manual (I sent him a pic from my phone). He says that towards the end of HP selling the 5890, they used the same inlet for both.

Now I have to decide (well, my boss does anyway) whether we want to replace like with like, or buy an inlet that matches the heater that we bought. My guess: it will come down to what's cheaper.

C.P.G. - Agilent no longer recognizes the part number, but I found one like it at digikey.com.

Peter - Thanks. I love doing this stuff, even if I get frustrated sometimes. I got placed alone on second shift after only a few months in the industry, and got to fix instruments as they went down. That's where I learned that "it don't get anymore broke than broke." It costs the company a lot of money to make a service call (we didn't have service contracts), so I might as well try and fix it. I've learned a lot from trial and error (usually a LOT of error) and now I've been given the responsibility of all the LCs and GCs we have. Its fun, I like it, and the company needs someone to do it.

Muwahahahaha!

Work is complete. Everything is back together and functioning normally. At least so far... I haven't actually ran anything on it yet, but everything is responding the way it should.

I used the old heater and the new sensor.

There was a brief moment of panic after I got it all back together and "woke up" the PC. I had a black screen, with a mouse pointer, and blinking lights on the front of the tower. After a call to IT and a forced restart, everything is okay. I should have shut down the PC before disconnecting the 5890... Oh well, live and learn.

Thanks again for your help. If anyone is ever in St. Louis, MO, send me a message, I'll buy you a beer.

-Greg

Great job man, they should give you some extra days off .

Okay, so we finally have something to run on our trusty 5890. Of course, I'm asked to set it up. I get the column loaded, all the set-points set, flows look good. I load the method, everything starts to heat, the oven shuts off. It says, simply, "WARN: OVEN SHUT OFF". Thanks, GC, I couldn't tell that on my own. It has no error message, just shuts off. It heats up a degree or two, knows what temp its at, just refuses to work. It almost seems like it thinks the door is open? Anybody got any ideas?

Check to see what the "Oven Max" is set at. It needs to (obviously) be higher than your setpoint.

If you are still having problems with this, you may have a problem with the oven heating element. This is easier to do than what you have just been through, though you will probably wish there was more room in the oven to get access to the element.