Chromatography Forum

Hello, I am currently working in Alaska and as you might imagine, it is quite cold Is there a way I can set up a method on the GC to cycle the oven between heating up to 300 C and then cooling down without the GC making an injection? It would be great if I could do this throughout the night that way when I arrive in the morning it is at least somewhat warm. Any ideas?

I assume you want it to cycle so that it's venting the hot air? I don't have a GC handy but can you make a method that cools down during the run (start at 25C, ramp to 300C, cool to 25C, ramp, etc.)?

yeah I just want to vent the warm air from the back of the GC. Do I have to have an injection in order for the oven to warm up or can I just tell it to warm the oven then cool down then back up again?

IMHO
Don't pre-maturely age your GC capillary column un-necessarily from high temperature oxidation, so less maintenance, makes your life happier and is cheaper for your employer.

My suggestion is to cosy up to the Admin Assistant (no pun intented ) to buy you an electric heater with a knock over cut-off switch,
and use an electric timer, so it turns on an hour or so before you arrive so you don't waste power unnecessarily, they are cheap as.

Alex

As my Dad used to say when I complained about the cold.."Put on a jumper"

GCguy

On Agilent ChemStations (don't know about other systems), you can set up a Sequence, just don't put vial numbers into the column (leave blank), must put number of "injections" into the appropriate column, and run a Sequence of "blank runs".

Should easily be possible, either by setting up via the data system or just setting up a trigger. The Thermo GCs used to come with a Cycle key that went in the J1 plug specifically for the purpose You don't mention your GC type or data system ?

I'm using a 7890A GC with Agilent Chemstation B.04.02. They finally got a heater in the lab room so its much better now. Thanks for all the help!

pacerlaser,

While I would not have used GC cycles to solve your problem, your post solved mine. I need to run the GC over and over again to monitor air samples and the directions here seem to have solved my problem.

Thanks for the post!

Best regards.

Glad to help!