Chromatography Forum

Hello,

I'm trying to resurrect an HP 5890 Series II GC with an FID.

When I power it up and turn on the detector, I see noise for Signal 1 in the local display.
However, when I run the test chromatogram for signal 1 and press start, signal 1 goes to 0.0 and never changes.

It is as if it is not proceeding for some reason.

I think the problem might be related to my oven temperature program having bogus setpoints or being too short.

If you have any suggestions or hints, I would appreciate it!

Best regards,
JJ

Im assuming you've checked all your gases and column connections?

Try turning your oven to near column max temp and see if you get an reading on detector, if not its detector electrical prob maybe.

How long is your Temp program? The complete cycle of 3 peaks needs about 90 seconds.

Gasman

Thank you for your responses. My program was less than 60 seconds. I'll try one longer than 90 seconds first thing in the morning.

jj

johnjohnson,

The first "peak", the biggest, starts almost instantly. Please clarify, Signal 1 = Test plot?

Best regards,

AICMM

Hi AICMM,

Good question. I've been trying the test chromatogram on both Signal 1 and also Signal 2. Sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both.

This morning I set the oven temperature and ramp to something that should take 3 or so minutes but it still didn't work.

I should point out that I have no gas hooked up to the machine yet. I can get the 'not ready' light to go away by turning on the ovens and the FID, but I cannot get the 'running' light to turn on no matter what I do.

I was trying to establish data communications with a via the test chromatogram before plumbing everything up.

I'm beginning to suspect that something may be wrong with the machine or else the test cannot be performed without gas and a running FID.

I managed to fix the problem.

My 5890 has a serial card and the other card required for the instrument network. The 5890 was configured to attempt to communicate with another non-existent machine in its instrument network.

Because of this, it was stuck in a 'pre-run' state even though all the local hardware was good to go.

I finally managed to generate a test chromatogram by reconfiguring the 5890 to be in 'local' mode instead of 'global' mode.

The commands to change the mode were something like:

Clear . 3 OFF ENTER