Column installation

[cchardwick]

Just buy a new GC for every column you have. That way you never have to replace columns.

[bisnettrj2]

How about this product?

http://www.sge.com/products/gc--lc-supp ... fingertite

[Peter Apps]

[quote="cchardwick"]Just buy a new GC for every column you have. That way you never have to replace columns.quote]

I was once asked for advice by a lab that was doing 8 different analyses - they had eight GCs set up. None of them were used for more than a month each year !

Peter

[WK]

Hi - I'm sure I remember us having an aluminium coated capillary column here once - would that be right? (20+ years ago). WK

[dblux_]

I find loud swearing helps, if not a lot.
Also colleagues who dont know what all the fuss is about (as they have smaller hands and more patience) are handy to have around.
Seriously though, surely there could be a detachable insert which the column could be attached to and then inserted in the top of the oven in a fit-one-way-only manner?
We have ECD and FID. The ECD, used once in a blue moon, is at the front of the oven and the daily used FID at the back.?

My 6890N was delivered with following configuration of detectors:

FRONT - FID
BACK - ECD



Pix

[jtreacy]

The annual service is next week.
I'll ask the engineer if he can switch the ECD and FID over.
I don't hold out much hope though, he's a bit of a klutz (3rd party - no reflection on Agilent).
Why not try myself? you might ask.
In short, if I made a mess of it I might get set upon by a baying mob of angry fellow users who think it's fine the way it is.

John

[PhotonicGuy]

"Loud swearing helps, if not a lot"- LOL, that was a good advice. I wonder how on earth was to work with glass capillary columns- it sounds very tough.

[jtreacy]

In my first job, back in the early eighties, they had a glass capillary column. It had its own GC and even its own little lab. Also, no-one was allowed to use it as it was so precious and delicate. There was one very senior guy who had access to 'the special GC' but he was a bit cautious and didn't want to put anything down it, in case he damaged the column. Needless to say, the amount of useful data we got from our first capillary column was limited.

On the column installation matter, I've taken the most sensible suggestion and decided to procure a GC for each column, including spares, just to cover things. All we need now is a lab the size of a small town to house the 42 GCs!

[chemwipe]

This is how I do it.
Septa, nut, ferrule, then cut column and install like so:

[TheBupKing]

We do exactly as pictured above. If you don't want to waste septa, using locking tweezers with rubber tips also works.

I usually put the nut on, then ferrule and seat the ferrule in the nut. I hold right at the base of the nut with tweezers and lock them down, then trim off to the correct length (i.e 4-6 mm on inlet end). Insert the nut into the inlet and apply upward pressure with the tweezers while tightening with a small wrench.

You can also get the finger tightened nuts which have a septum in them to hold column position, makes it even easier, but I find they are harder to get as tight as the wrench-tightened ones. I have also used the pre-installation ferrule tighteners before, but they're not really necessary.