Clarus 500 Autosampler breakdown

[Matt Savage]

Last January we had to have the syringe stepper motor and control board on our GC replaced. Earlier this week the autosampler has gone the same way. Are we just really unlucky or is there some bigger problem? The control board looks to be sat right next to the GC oven without any kind of heat shield which seems a bit daft to me!

At £140 an hour for the engineer and £1,500 for the board my boss is having a sense of humour failure (not good at pay review time!!!!)

Thanks

Matt

[WK]

Matt
I have 2 Autosystems both for 10years with absolutely no problems.
This year 1 of them has had your problem (stepper motor or control board - ie syringe appears to drive down after injection - noise).
I haven't got a Clarus but thanks for confirming the cost on the board.
Is the board situated in a different part of the GC in the Autosystem I wonder?
I am just about to contact PE.
WK

[Peter Apps]

Two breakdowns with a year in between is hardly an epidemic, although it is more than would be expected. Recurrent problems with electronics can be due to a dirty power supply, spikes, brownouts etc.

Peter

[shaun78]

We have a Clarus 500 that we use for headspace analysis. We've had the instrument a little over a year now.

We have had to have the control board replaced twice now. I believe it was actually three times because the install tech noticed during one of the repairs that the board ordered from PE was actually bad.

Having to replace two boards in under a year I would be inclined to agree with you on the oven. It could also be that PE made a bad batch of boards as well... Hard to tell, but clearly not your fault.

The board is not situiated in a different place when compared to the AutoSystem XL as far as I can tell. Insulation between the oven and the board is about the only difference.