Chromatography Forum

I am having trouble iginiting the 5890. I have checked all the flow and ignite with different ratio of hydrogen/air/nitrogen without success. There is no standard 'popping' sound when I pressed the ignite button and the light seems not as bright as it used to be.

The second thing I'm having trouble with is that I cannot load the method to the GC from Empower. When I clicked the 'equilibrate' buttom, it takes a long time to set up and would eventually say instrument failure.

Please help!

I always shut off my make up gas when igniting. Sometomes just pushing the button won't work, so I blow gently into the castle while the ignitor is glowing. I know but it works.

the light seems not as bright as it used to be.

You may have a poor ground for the igniter. Disconnect the power wire at the plug then loosen and retighten the igniter assembly. Reconnect the power and check the brightness of the glow plug.

From Bigbear

I always shut off my make up gas when igniting.

Good advice. My ignition procedure is to shut off the hydrogen and makeup gas flows then hold down the ignitor button while I open the hydrogen valve. Once the flame is lit (monitoring the signal on the GC display), I open the makeup valve.

The second thing I'm having trouble with is that I cannot load the method to the GC from Empower. When I clicked the 'equilibrate' buttom, it takes a long time to set up and would eventually say instrument failure.

Please help!

Check the wiring conections on your SAT/IN Interface module.

We had a simlar problem methods would load into the GC from empower then the instrument failure message, it was traced to a loose wiring connection.

If I am not mistaken (don't have my manuals right in front of me) pushing in the ignitor button cuts off the make-up flow anyway. Also, try a lighter. And the advice about blowing on the castle has been successful for me as well (and I was skeptical as well....)

Best regards,

AICMM

We had a similar problem and it turned out to be too much moisture in our gases - how old are your driers?

We always use a lighter for ignition.

G

I blow gently into the castle while the ignitor is glowing. I know-but it works.

And I thought I was the only one doing this !!!

Don't tell the wife !!!

Yeah the gentle blowing thing is a pretty common technique, I heard about it from another engineer within a month of starting. Its very helpful, just blow gently toward the ignitor as if you wanted to kind of slow down the gases from leaving the ignition area, you should see the ignitor increase in brightness.

On troublesome FIDs I usually set hydrogen only to come out for 30 seconds or so before lighting it, and on EPC controlled flows I set it to like 60 mL/min rather than 30. After this I turn the air back on and immediately try igniting.

You'll get a louder pop.

Some things that I have found to help (other than blowing on the ignitor wire):
Remove the ignitor and carefully bush the fitting on the ignitor and the castle, then reinstall.

When the ignitor is out, check the wire. If you use the HP flow measuring adapter this can get pushed in over time. You can use a tweezer to GENTLY pull it out slightly where it is flush with the suface. Of course, this can also detach the wire so make sure you have a new one on hand before trying this.

Another trick is to run a wire to a ground point on the frame then touch it off on the ignitor nut. Have also used a paper clip placed between the ignitor nut and the top of a second detector.

Also: loosen, then tighten the injector mount screws and the ignitor itself (5/16 inch open end wrench) to restore good ground contact.

Thank you all for the advice. I have managed to ignite and connect to empower, indeed there was a loose connection.

But now my next challenge is no signal when I perform a single injection - shows 0.0 on GC panel and a flat baseline in empower, however I did check signal on GC panel before starting the single injection which showed a signal of 14. I remember when I did calibration, I had a cable connecting from GC signal 1 to the integrator inorder to obtain results, now that i want to collect results thru empower, do i need to connect that cable from signal 1 to my LACE maybe? Althou I think I did see a cable not connected at the ' signal 1' area to LACE...

I hope someone is kindly enough to clear my confusion soon 

Thank you in advance.