Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2015 08:17:42 +0000
Hi Chris,
I think it’s time I put my 2c worth into this equation and asked if you or anyone out there has a dead or dying MR400 amplifier sub assembly they are prepared to loan or barter in some way or another.
As a function of time a new solution should be found for this particular instrument as well as it’s bigger bothers (Inova / VNMRS etc.) where we have one in place already at least up to 600MHz. I think we may just have also for this particular MR series, hence the desire to lay our hands on a dead or dying unit.
Should you or any of your colleagues copied here have such a thing including if possible a schematic please let me know.
Maybe we can find a plug & play solution for this particular problem too. Soldering irons and scraped knuckles do not sound like plug & play to me, more like plug & pray!
Best regards, David.
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Von: Christopher Kojiro [mailto:ckojiro_at_umich.edu]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 28. Juli 2015 21:58
An: Kenneth Knott
Cc: AMMRL (ammrl_at_ammrl.org)
Betreff: Re: AMMRL: Repairing low band amp in Agilent MR400
Howdy Ken,
We have two 2007 vintage MR400's, installed January 2008. The 300 Watt low band amps on both have had to be replaced. The first one was in 2012, and at that time Agilent would not sell us just the low band amp; but, they did give us a discount on the whole "Power Module", which included a new low band amp and the new user replaceable components.
The second instrument's low band amp was just replaced this year, 2015. Although, we had to go thru two replacement amps to get a good one. For this second low band amp they sold us just the 300 Watt amp, Part No: 191656301. This was the soldered version, and we did the soldering ourselves. I would not recommend doing you own soldering unless you are comfortable using a soldering iron (a good high power iron), and you know how to work around a high voltage power supply with big capacitors. You could also have a few scraped knuckles removing and reconnecting the amp.
Both of our original 300 Watt low band amps did not fail completely, but just started loosing power requiring longer pw90 values. Someone with some expertise on amplifiers, and schematics would also help, could possibly find a fix by replacing some individual component(s).
HTH, cheers, Chris
___ ____ __
| | | | \ / |
| | | | Christopher L. Kojiro, PhD ph: (734)-763-2009
| | | | |\/| Co-Director, NMR Services ckojiro_at_umich.edu<mailto:ckojiro_at_umich.edu>
\ \__/ | | | Department of Chemistry, The University of Michigan
\____/|_| |_930 N. University Ave. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055
On Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 10:15 PM, Hamish Grant <granth_at_unimelb.edu.au<mailto:granth_at_unimelb.edu.au>> wrote:
Hi Ken.
We have both a 2006 vintage Varian MR400 & a 2013 Agilent MR400. The low band RF pulse amp on the Varian system failed around 2009 & we got a quote from Varian (still in business) for around $40K to replace the entire bottom rack as you have indicated.
Having spent 25 years working with Varian NMR sales & service, I was intimately acquainted with the hardware configuration & had been involved with many service jobs where the “brick” output modules for the RF pulse amps in Unity/Inova systems had been replaced – at costs varying from ~$2K if purchased by the user directly from AMT (later Herley) to ~$12K as supplied by Varian. The policy to extensively “modularise” the MR400 and solder-connect the bricks to the power supply was, I suspect, an attempt to recover some profit after selling a heavily-discounted spectrometer.
Whatever the original concept was, Varian got cold feet after huge customer pushback and subsequently fitted Molex-connector wiring harness bricks which could be easily replaced within the PS module. Although the system we had purchased was an early model with soldered connections, the very enterprising & sympathetic Varian service guy got the P/N for the separate 300W brick – around $8K as I recall at the time – and cut off the Molex plug to resolder it to the interconnects. Thus, I know that the bricks can be ordered separately & will work in older-style MR400 PS modules.
Sadly, I am unable to locate the quote for this item (the 300W lo-band amp) but we recently thought we had a problem with the 60W 1H amp in our Agilent system & got a quote from Agilent for the following:
[Brick-1H-quote-MR400.jpg]
So – I know that these parts are (were??) available from Agilent & sold separately but can only provide the PN for the hi-band module, I regret.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Hamish
---------------------------------------------
Hamish Grant
Deputy Manager
Melbourne Magnetic Resonance
Bio21 Institute
The University of Melbourne
Melbourne VIC 3010
Australia
+61-3- 8344 2477
www.bio21.org<http://www.bio21.org>
From: Kenneth Knott [mailto:kknott_at_vt.edu<mailto:kknott_at_vt.edu>]
Sent: Saturday, 25 July 2015 2:00 AM
To: ammrl_at_ammrl.org<mailto:ammrl_at_ammrl.org>
Subject: AMMRL: Repairing low band amp in Agilent MR400
We have an older Varian vintage MR400 which has a failing low band amplifier. Agilent sells the entire power module (both amps, power supply, and shim controls) as one replacement unit.
Does anyone have any experience servicing the individual amplifiers? Are the specifically calibrated or tuned by Agilent?
Thanks,
--
Ken Knott
Department of Chemistry
Analytical Services
Virginia Tech
(540)267-6502 (Cell)
(540)231-0885 (Office)
(image/jpeg attachment: image001.jpg)