Chromatography Forum

I am wondering if anyone else has experienced an issue where they have gone from Chemstation to MassHunter and subsequently had their instrument start throwing RFPA difficulty errors. This has happened to two of my instruments so far. I'm told the new software is putting too much of a strain on the sideboard (these are 5975s).

Thanks.

I am wondering if anyone else has experienced an issue where they have gone from Chemstation to MassHunter and subsequently had their instrument start throwing RFPA difficulty errors. This has happened to two of my instruments so far. I'm told the new software is putting too much of a strain on the sideboard (these are 5975s).
Thanks.

Would you clarify what you mean by RFPA difficulty errors ? Really can't imagine how software could put too much of strain on the sideboard (do you mean on the doors of vacuum chamber ?).

An RFPA difficulty error usually means a problem with the quads.
Agilent originally insisted it was a board issue, but I swapped boards to no effect, so they are sending an engineer to try other things.

An RFPA difficulty error usually means a problem with the quads.
Agilent originally insisted it was a board issue, but I swapped boards to no effect, so they are sending an engineer to try other things.

When doing the upgrade, in the initial instrument setup, did you make sure the positive or negative polarity of the quads matched between the two setups? It should be marked on the side board I believe as to which is the preferred polarity of the analyzer, this is tested at the factory to see which gives the best peak shapes. Usually it doesn't make much difference, but sometimes having it swapped can give bad peak shapes for the masses.

The peak shapes are actually nice, it tunes fine if it only runs up to 700 amu. You can still see grass from about 300? onward, but it will tune. But if you run it up higher than that it throws the error.
I would assume Agilent checked the polarity.

I would assume Agilent checked the polarity.

A bold assumption, I assure you.

What was the resolution to this problem?