Chromatography Forum

DSP007, thanks for your advice. But I would not be going into the equipment.

Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about having Thermo equipment. The persons who purchased this equipment were not very informed, they were also bought through tender. So I guess they were the cheapest but the most expensive on the long run with no support with application.

Down here we have problems with not only Thermo equipment but their agent. And having this GC and a HPLC (recently) supplied by them we are stuff with them. I just hate the situation.

Thank you all for all your advice and assistance. I will keep you all posted as the situation unravels.

After looking into the spare parts list I found that the unit seems to have indeed a "power supply".

According to the file "File_26835.pdf" the part number of the power supply is 208 060 10.
Please take a look at page 5 of said file (spare parts catalogue) to see the location of the board.

This should be the primary cause of the problem, not the mainboard.

Thanks HbJ. I did also notice that there was a power supply spare part. But since I dont know much about the hardware I did not mention anything on this site. I spoke to the technician earlier, indicating all my new found knowledge - mostly attained from you. I even told him that I ran the diag and the results.

He must not have heard me very well, but he did indicate that they were getting a second option as to the problem might be. He called me back a few hours after asking me for this same information. Admitting he had never used that function before.

So now we wait and see what he says next. By the way would the power supply cost more than the main board?

Well, I'm back

A power supply should be considerably simpler and cheaper than a motherboard.

Would love to hear how this matter did develop.

Hi HbJ. Hope you had fun wherever you went.

I will definitely give an update on the matter. The technicians will be coming in to look at the problem. Not sure when though.

The thing is our unit has a 8Kva UPS and before that is some sort of surge arrest. However, the technician asked if they were working properly. I assumed that if they were not some sort of alarm would go off. I tried tracking down the information from the company (APC) that was a dead end. Then I tried the local supplier, he indicated that he really does not know. But they can run some sort of diagnostics on it (at a cost of course). I was thinking to let the technician look at the GC and diagnose the problem and then if he still thinks it may be the power supply have them run the diagnostics.

During the time the GC developed this problem we were having some serious power fluctuations. However, I figured the surge protection plus the UPS would cover that. I know they can not be 100%, but they do not seem damaged in anyway to me...

Thanks for the additional information.

UPSes can work in two fashions: The more simple one is a so-called offline UPS. These units just charge their batteries and await a failure of the mains, i.e. over- or undervoltage. If there is now a very sudden gradient in mains voltage they can't react in a timely manner and the attached unit is damaged.

On the other hand, on-line UPSes are a more sophisticated solution which always convert the mains voltage to DC and re-convert it back to AC. Those are almost immune to deviant mains voltages.

If you tell me the type numver of your UPS I might find out which kind you have (I guess it's an offline-type. 8kVA as online UPS should cause MUCH noise and excess heat).

Check for any control light on the surge arrestor. They tend to age quickly if they are subjected to an erratic electrical grid (in fact, these so-called varistors should be changed in intervals of five years).

Overall I guess your GC was damaged by a massive surge (fits the symptoms best).

Hey HbJ. Thanks for the info. The UPS model is an APC SURT8000XLT and the surge protector is a PMP1X. I just checked the UPS and it is supposed the on-line version.

I had called in the local supplier recently and they did not have much to tell me in terms of knowing whether the system was working properly. They suggested that they come in and run a diagnosis (at a cost of course). Also I could not get much information on the usefulness of this diagnosis in terms it indicating that there was some surge or something on such a date etc.

Of course I can get them to check the surge protector out.

As for a massive surge I would not be surprised. Once we had a 8Kva UPS blow up (well not literally, but there was a definite boom). That could have been because it was probably not set up properly.

I am hoping this one was set up properly though.

Hi lusi

Before the thread gets too deeply into potential power supply problems, go back to what was happening immediately before the problem arose.

Peter

Hi Peter. The service people would come to look at the system. They are also proposing it was a power supply issue. However, when they actually look we will know.

I do not know if you remember from the other thread, it all happened when I attempted to service the ECD. However, we were having some serious power problems here. Actually, we stopped receiving power to the building two Fridays ago.

Because of all of this I am waiting until the service person look at the equipment before proceeding. And if he determines it was a possible power problem, we would have to let the UPS people run their diagnosis. Otherwise it was probably some stray voltage or something.

where are you from lusi ?

The service technician is here. He saw a blown fuse on the power supply. (position F1). He changed fuse but nothing has changed.
He says that the power supply board looks ok.

Not too sure what is next.

Any ideas?