Chromatography Forum

Hello all,

Virgin poster and gas chromatographer here.

Recently ordered and installed a 5890II in our R&D facility here. I'm pretty much on my own from start to finish with all this. I need to know how to be sure my FID is lit. All my gas flows are good, I press the ignition button and don't know what I should expect. I dont hear an audible change to the instrument, but I do see a peak and a small signal change in my live singnal feed... I'm just wary of explosion honestly...

Thanks for your help.
-MS

There is often a pop when it ignites also the signal on det A should spike up and slowly recede down to 5-30. The best surefire way to tell if it is lit is to hold a wrench or other piece of cold metal over the FID chimney and see if condenstaion droplets form on it.

Mine is a real pain in the rear to light lately, I have to hold the ignitor button while using a utility lighter nothing else works. I am not sure if I need to replace the ignitor or the whole collector assembly as the ignitor seems fine it lights up bright red and it is on securely.

We use a glass 250 ml beaker. If you hold the bottom of the beaker at an angle just above the FID chimney, you can see condensation forming on the bottom of the beaker if it is lit.

The detector must be hot ( over 200 C ) before ignition.

Thanks for all of your help. It looks like the coil on my ignitor is slightly recessed in the housing. It would glow just fine, but not ignite. Simply blowing gently on the stream coming through the chimney exposed the gas makeup to the hot coil. BANG, ignition. Looks like I'm finally up to speed. Just don't get too close or you may lose an eyebrow.

Thanks again,
-MS

Simply blowing gently on the stream coming through the chimney exposed the gas makeup to the hot coil. BANG, ignition.

We've been doing that for decades.

Also, if the ignitor doesn't glow when button is pushed, try unscrewing it a 1/4 turn with 5/16 inch wrench, then re-tightening.

We always keep a butane lighter handy just in case the ignitor becomes corroded. I had one in college years ago, Varian 1400 I believe, that always had a book of paper matches in the drawer to light it with.

Yep mine looks the same the ignitor is recessed in there a mm or two.