Agilent 1260 A lemon?

[tbone]

Hi folks,

As you know buying a new instrument these days can be a harrowing experience, given the demands for instant data and, especially, the cost of the instrument. I would like to ask the form for honest feed back about the Agilent 1260. We purchased their top of the line instrument about three months ago. Since then we have got about 5 good chromatograms before the instrument began giving a serious of mysterious problems. It became in operable. After dancing with the Agilent people for about two weeks, they came out, under warranty and tried to fix the problem. After about a steady two weeks of working every day on this BRAND NEW instrument, they couldnt fix it. So, they brought in a brand new pump from their manufacturing plant in Germany. Well, after another week of working on it they concluded that it did not perform up to specifications and so they brought in ANOTHER brand new 1260,,, they took back the old one or rather the previous brand new instrument.

Ok, problem solved? NO STINKING WAY! This new machine also doesnt work, it too became inoperable.
Now the Agilent folks are back in our lab trying to figure out how to make it work. The experience has now become a nightmare beyond your wildest beliefs.

My boss is chewing on my rear end trying to understand why we have had no data after spending $100K? My associate is so mad that she cannot do any work on the instrument and has now become the scape goat for the issues, even though she has more experience on Agilent machines than the applications kids they send us.

What I want to know, is has any one else had such issues with the new 1260? It has only been out there a few months so I am thinking there is a design flaw in the instrument. I will have to ask for our money back soon.. If so, what did they do to get out of the situation and get a working instrument, either Agilent or another company?

[Karen01]

I have been having back pressure problems with the 1260 we have... I have to change the filter in the valve on the pump at least once a week. Given the location the problem can not come from teh samples being injected.

The mobile phase is just 18.2 megaOhm water that goes though an 0.2 um filter as part of our water system and I make sure I change the water rinse the reservoir weekly to make sure there is no microbial growth. The system is kept flowing just about all the time.

When running on a very old Waters system using the same mobile phase and column i did not have that problem

BTW the Agilent service person I always request be it for HPLC or GC issues is VERY VERY good. She first did the first install for me back about 16 years ago and even back then she impressed me. Most of the other Agilent service people (or Waters for that matter) I have worked with IMO are not in her class.

- Karen

[unmgvar]

can you be more precise on the applications that you are running on the system?

i know of a case of an application runnnig with glycerine transfered from hplc to RRLC and in a week the pump and column were gone
in other cases applications are switched from high buffers of phosphate mainly to acetic or TFA to help systems that are now especially in the tubing and smaller volumes more sensitive

one thing we did to help further was put safety caps on the solvent bottles.
it helps for the safety issue of organics and the bonus is that it helps prevent the dust and other stuff coming inside the solvents that make then into the pump and column

[bisnettrj2]

I have two 1290s and haven't had issues like this. I agree that the service engineers are hit and miss - the instruments are so new that even the service people are still learning them, unfortunately.

What are you seeing, exactly, that is making the instrument 'inoperable'? Symptoms you're seeing, m obile phase (and how you prep it), column you're running, injection solvent and volume, column temp, etc. The more details the better.

[DSP007]

Hi.I agree with the speakers. These things mysteriously.
Agilent quality sometimes deteriorated , but not to this extent.There is a suspicion of "curves hands". Tipical "curve hand" (also hands have grown out of ass)
1) Abrasive destruction of plunger gasket. High concetration buffer in gradient and precipiate insoluble buffer salt.
2) Non filtred and non degased phase . Mechanical particles and filter clogging
3) Grown of bacteries in phosphate (and others ) buffers . Also filter clogging.
4) Rolling (kramp) tubing and pipping with steel ferrules/needle.Someone suffering from "fanaticism" and "physically strong as Dinamit, Valuev and Klitschko". Usually, this "athlete" => woman ...
5)Others

[tbone]

Thanks for the responses. We are running tryptic maps in our 1260. The usual solvents, with a small percent TFA/
There is no way there is a salt problem nor a bacterial growth problem. AcCN is a sterilant. All buffers sterile filtered.

Between me and my associate, we have done thistype of chromatography for over 50 years,we have used every Agilent HPLC made, 1090,1100,,1200,,never had such crappy results. We are a regulated biotech company and need better reliability
than this...what a disappointment Agilent has become. Im convinced the 1260 has a design flaw...

[bisnettrj2]

Which 1260 pump - isocratic, binary or quaternary? Whichever pump you have, has Agilent offered the other in its place to see if you get better results? And you still haven't offered the symptoms/problems you're seeing - can you give us an idea of what exactly is happening that is rendering the system 'inoperable'? It sounds like the focus has been on the pump - what exactly is going on with the pump that has made it the focal point of Agilent's troubleshooting?

[HPLC algae chick]

I can only speak to my experience. And here's what I've experienced. I have used and loved Agilent instruments for 15 yrs. I got a 1200 (with several 1260 components)-long story short, after several months of attempted method development/calibration/validation, service calls, etc. we gave up and went back to our 1100, even though it was beginning to 'age out' of being able to be covered under service contract (we were under tight time constraints-I was leaving for another job and was turning the operation over to someone less experienced). Baseline instability problems (not just noise- I expected, and got, increased noise), and precision and accuracy worse than our 1100. We worked with Agilent technicians repeatedly-who I have always found top-notch. Our 1100 still performed well and had years worth of validation behind it, so we stuck with it.
Now I am at my new job and have a brand new 1260. I haven't even put anything more than methanol through it and again see an unstable baseline (not as severe as I saw before, but I've not injected anything or run any of my real solvents through it yet). I've also already had two service calls-board in the DAD and multi-channel valve in the pump both needed to be replaced [less than 20 hours of run time so far].
I haven't given up on Agilent yet-I've long trusted their superior quality and their technical support. But it's frustrating and stressful, I'd love to find an answer that points to something I'm doing to cause these problems (that's why I got on the forum today) and like you I have to make it work because we've spent the money (on Agilent at my recommendation).