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<div>Sabine, if you purchased a new XLA/I the technology would be essentially the same as a 20 year old instrument. When they replace parts it might be a newer version, the monochromator mount and wavelength assembly being examples, but its still that era technology.
Beckman has the spare parts for our machines although maybe not in stock at any moment. My machine is ~1990 vintage and we have probably replaced every part at least once. It also now has an FDS and a turbo molecular pump, so many more things are altered.
But I see no reason we can't keep running for 10 more years since Beckman must support the only version of the XLA/I they make. That said replacing parts with new parts sometimes reveals other underlying problems. My philosophy has been have a service contract
and expect competent regular service, which for 20 years I have received, with rare exceptions.</div>
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<span style="font-weight:bold">From: </span>Sabine Kaltofen <<a href="mailto:sabine.kaltofen@biochemistry.lu.se">sabine.kaltofen@biochemistry.lu.se</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Date: </span>Friday, April 4, 2014 4:33 AM<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">To: </span>"<a href="mailto:rasmb@list.rasmb.org">rasmb@list.rasmb.org</a>" <<a href="mailto:rasmb@list.rasmb.org">rasmb@list.rasmb.org</a>><br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Subject: </span>[RASMB] how to fix an old XL-A<br>
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<div style="direction: ltr;font-family: Tahoma;color: #000000;font-size: 10pt;">Dear All,<br>
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I am working with an XL-A that is about 20 years old. It has been working nicely but now the old lady is starting to have problems. We are experiencing failures in setting the wavelength (wavelength servo timeout). The problem was occurring only occasionally
in the beginning but has become more and more frequent (which sounds a bit like a mechanical part that is becoming more and more worn out).
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Our service engineer had a look at the wavelength drive motor and the pin. There was no obvious damage so he cleaned and reinserted everything and the pin moved properly afterwards. However, that cure did not last, so the problem is permanent now and the pin
is not moving at all. One might have to exchange the motor and pin - but since the machine is old and the layout of the parts has changed, Beckman essentially suggests to exchange the whole lamp assembly, motor pot, lamp holder et al (see picture attached).
This sounds rather expensive and they are not even sure the problem can be fixed by changing these parts.
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I was thinking whether there is another solution, like finding a spare part from another old machine, having parts rebuilt by the workshop etc. I guess problems like that will become more frequent in the future, since it gets increasingly difficult to find
spare parts for older machines. Therefore I would be grateful for any thoughts and suggestions you might have on how we could fix our machine.
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All the best,<br>
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Sabine<br>
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<font face="Arial">Sabine Kaltofen<br>
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