AMMRLers,
I am contemplating the purchase of a Nalorac broadband probe for my Bruker
600 (1999 vintage).
I expect that many of the samples that will be run using this probe will be
of the J Young variety (with ground glass fitting, stopcock, depleted
uranium weights to justify expense, etc).
In the past I have experienced problems with breakage of the quartz insert
in the Bruker broadband probe in my Bruker 400 (1999 vintage). This is
apparently caused by the fact that calibrating the lift for an ordinary
tube (i.e., not so heavy) results in a rapid drop of the heavier J Young
tubes onto the probe, thus breaking that little $80 piece of quartz that
sits between the NMR tube and the coil. Recalibration of the lift every
time somebody wants to use a J Young tube is not an option.
I should also mention that overtures directed towards Bruker to get a bulk
discount on these inserts (we order about 10 at a time now) have failed.
With the banning of J Young tubes from my 400, the quartz insert only seems
to break about once a month now. We are now used to that condition - a
hour of downtime while one person takes apart the probe and another chases
people away from the console so they won't drop a sample into the magnet
with no probe ("I didn't know...and I didn't think the DOWN - DO NOT USE
sign applied to me...I justed wanted to collect a proton spectrum...").
My question is this: do people have any comments on the relative robustness
of the Bruker versus the Nalorac probes when using J Young tubes (or with
regular tubes full of things like mercury or similarly massive samples)?
I will anonymize and post the results if there is sufficient response and
interest in the results of my query.
Thanks in advance to all who respond.
Jeff
Dr. Jeffrey H. Simpson, Instrumentation Facility Director
Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139
617-253-1812 ofc, 617-253-1806 lab, 617-253-0873 fax
e-mail: jsimpson_at_mit.edu
http://web.mit.edu/speclab/www/
Received on Wed Feb 13 2002 - 11:49:16 MST