Lifetime of Agilent EPC

[Jana P]

Hi

I was just wondering if anyone has a rough idea of how many injections/how long a EPC should last on an Agilent.

I estimate in the two years that we have had our Agilent we have only injected at most (this is generous estimation) approximately 2000 injections (our use is infrequent) and the EPC has packed it in.

We are just trying to gauge what we should expect from this type of unit in terms of Lifespan.

Thanks all

[skunked_once]

I have an HP5890 series II with EPC and we have made about 16,000 injections in the last four years with no problem. The EPC on the newer Agilent may be somewhat different engineering but failure after 2,000 injections doesn't seem reasonable.

[Jana P]

Thanks for the confirmation on that.

I suspected that the problem was not a common one, as it has taken 2 weeks for Agilent to even suspect that the problems we were observing could be due to the EPC.

If anyone is operating an Agilent and has had this problem I would like to hear your story too and if any problems have been experianced since replacing the EPC.

[thohry]

Hi
Per my experience, EPC lifetime depends not only on the number of injections but the gas quality as well.
2000 injections for the lifespan of an EPC sounds very uncommon.

[krickos]

Hi

We have had up to 15 GCs (6890, 6890+, 6890N) just in my department for +10 years and I can only recall 1-2 EPCs failures, might be another but yes not a common problem.
I seems to recall a few comments in the 90s of the first versions of EPCs not being so good but basicly they seem to work just fine most of the time.

[gcguy]

The failure of the Agilent EPC units is very random. We have had some fail very quickly and others that never fail. Gas purity does have a lot to do with it but there also seems to be some variation in the manufacture of the units.
We have had failures on newer and older ones on both split and on-column ones. We have seen failures on the front injector while the rear one has been fine.
I have asked Agilent engieers about the lifetime of these units and they all seem to think that they don't fail.

GCguy

[aldehyde]

Hi (I am an Agilent FSE),

EPCs should last for many injections (as said above, 15,000 or more is very possible). I have seen many that have seen years of use with no problems. I have also replaced many EPCs that have been damaged almost immediately by contaminated gases. Not just using the wrong grade (breathing air???), not having traps, or passing it through miles of rusty tubing from tanks located "out back" but also stuff like running a hydrogen generator with insufficient water in the tank (will make wet hydrogen and blow an EPC right away).

What exactly is the problem? Are you not getting the correct amount of flow or?

Aldehyde