[RASMB] CPU Board Malfunction on XL-I

[Leech, AP]

Hi all,

It would be interesting to know if those 10 machines are all "new"
- our system was bought in about 2000 and has the old W95(98) GUI
and camera, but we also suffer from the stops scanning problem. For
our system it only happens at the end of an interference scan, and
can be worked round by doing Stop Scans then restarting the method
scan. This is reliable but tedious in that someone (i.e. me) has to
check the machine every half hour or so. We never had problems with
the centrifuge stopping or bad w2t values. I also consider the
problem to be a timing issue, but I'm not sure how the interference
optics and the DAB interface and whether this is the cause.

I have been trying to work out whether it is worthwhile upgrading to
the "new" camera and software, but it sounds like that could be "out
of the frying pan into the fire"!

Andrew

On 11/03/2011 11:04, Ute Curth wrote:
> Hi Ian,
>
> we bought an XL-I equipped with an Aviv AU-FDS in 2008 and also suffer
> from severe problems. Either the centrifuge stops spinning or the
> computer stops scanning within a run. This happens after unpredictable
> times (20 min to 20 hours), at different rotor speeds (e.g. 22, 35 or 50
> krpm), independent whether we measure absorbance only or absorbance and
> interference but not in every run. Our machine is still under warranty
> and Beckman has been trying for more than one year to solve this
> problem. A lot of components of the machine (all boards, the display,
> the radial drive....) were exchanged, but this did not solve the
> problem. After having ruled out that there were problems with the power
> supply in our institute, they admitted that there is a timing problem in
> the communication between centrifuge and computer and that similar
> problems exist in about 10 machines worldwide. Therefore, they modified
> the firmware and installed a new firmware pre-release (now the machine
> stopped scanning regularly in runs which were performed at 50000 rpm)
> and afterwards a new version of the GUI, which should solve this
> problem. In first tests with the new firmware/GUI combination the
> machine seems to work more reliable (it did not stop in several test
> runs at several speeds), but it turned out that the new firmware is not
> able to hand over the correct value for w^2t to the computer (a plot of
> w^2t against the time is not linear as expected, but looks like a saw
> tooth wave). They are trying to solve this problem for several weeks now
> and I still hope that our centrifuge will work properly soon. Just as a
> comment: the Aviv fluorescence detection system works without any problems.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Ute
>
> --
> PD Dr. rer. nat. Ute Curth
>>  Medizinische Hochschule Hannover
>>  Strukturanalyse
>>  OE 8830
>>  Carl-Neuberg-Str. 1
>>  30625 Hannover
>>  Germany
>>
>>  Tel.: +49-511-5329372
>>  Fax : +49-511-5322909
>
>
>
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-- 
Dr Andrew Leech                   *  Laboratory Head
Technology Facility               *  Molecular Interactions Laboratory
Department of Biology (Area 15)   *  Tel   : +44 (0)1904 328723
University of York                *  Fax   : +44 (0)1904 328804
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