Chromatography Forum

Hi all!
Does anyone have informations to give me about the "hidden" limitations of using Empower 2 to pilot HPLC Agilent 1100?
What kind of problem do you have and how do you solve it?
I'm actually doing a pilot test and trying to find what problem we can expect in the futur to solve them as quick as prossible.

Thanks a lot!

Rico

We have Empower 2 running some A1100s w/ VWDs via serial cables (Equinox card, cable, license all required). We also have some A1100s w/ DADs controlled via Ethernet.

There are a couple of things you have to worry about - - -
having the correct Jet Direct card in your DAD
having firmware versions that are Empower compatible for each module
having the correct instrument NIC driver for model 10 LAC/Es
having your dip switches set properly

and there are a couple of temp. control/alarm type things you need to shut off in the A1100 to keep an alarm condition from stopping your run.

Basically, setup is a chore, but it works well enough once you get it going although setting up serial instruments is a little slower than Ethernet or IEEE ones.

Also - when we upgraded to Empower 2, we had to rewrite all of our A1100 instrument methods. Hopefully, we won't have to do this again when we go to E3.

Thanks a lot DR for this very usefull informations.

Rico

Allso - when we upgraded to Empower 2, we had to rewrite all of our A1100 instrument methods. Hopefully, we won't have to do this again when we go to E3.

This could be a common problem for Waters.
When we moved from Masslynx 4.0 to 4.1n upgrade connected with an upgrade of the UPLC firmware, the service engineer that performed the work told us: "I'm not sure it's completely necessary but Waters suggested to us to open the methods and save them, even without any modification but, allowing the new sw to update all the informations".

[quote="DR"]
and there are a couple of temp. control/alarm type things you need to shut off in the A1100 to keep an alarm condition from stopping your run.

quote]

DR, could you give more details on this? I've had issue in my lab with A1100 runs stopping for no reason, and I haven't been able to get to the bottom of it.

We use Empower 1.

You need to turn off the alarms that would normally alert the 1100 user and data system of low mobile phase or an "off" temperature condition in the column compartment (and, I suppose in the sample compartment if it is thermostatted).

Via handheld controller:

**To shut Column compartment thermostat data output off
Views>System>Tests>Col. Comp. Enter
M . M
scroll to Command, Enter
RAWS 0 Enter, Execute
Confirmed by RAWS? Enter, Execute – should see "0000RAWS0"

In the event that a thermostatted ALS is used, that signal needs to be turned off too.
Views>System>Tests>Autosampler Enter

Finish and Confirm as above