GCMS and power outage!! ... need to vent and shutdown first?

[Karen01]

I just found out that the power will be out at work tomorrow (the weekend) and the GC MS (agilent 7890GC with 5975MS) is now running.

Do I need to go in tonight or early Sat AM to vent the MS and shut things down before the power goes off, or will it be OK if I don't?

- Karen

[Don_Hilton]

Most modern instruments can handle a power outage - or they would die from unplanned events like lights going out from afternoon thunderstorms. Having said that, I do like to power down an instrument (it does not have to be vented) and unplug it to avoid spikes and surges as other equipment suffers the power failure and then comes back on. While a single outage will probably not hurt an instrument, I gather that there is a cumulative effect.

[aldehyde]

Most likely: power goes out, turbo pump spins down as per normal and system remains under some level of vacuum. When you come back in turn it on and listen to make sure things are normal/monitor pump down. Things will be fine.

Small chance: a fuse blows and you have to do some troubleshooting to get things working.

Miniscule chance: some unforseen badness. The lab burns down, your dog runs away, etc.

[Peter Apps]

Too late now, but for next time .....

The power going off is a problem, and if you have advance warning it is good to close everything down neatly. There is more chance of a problem when the power comes back on again, because you can get voltage spikes that make electronics very unhappy. Also, it is not unknown for maintenance work to involve multiple shut downs and restarts.

Peter

[orcicdejan]

To counteract power surges and multiple shutdowns/restarts, we have installed an circuit breaker (not sure if that's correct English term) that, well, breaks circuit on power outage and requires manual closing afterwards. Won't save you from negative effects of power loss itself, though - one day, *someone* flipped the main power switch in our building, and turbo-pump died (it was quite old, though).

[AICMM]

Karen01,

I heartily agree with Peter. If you have a chance to gracefully shut down your MS before the power does it for you, do it. For example, remote chance but possible, you MS is at a higher vacuum than your rough pump so there is a possibility of backstreaming from rough to MS. Does not happen if you shut down gracefully.

Best regards,

AICMM