Dear AMMRL Members:
This request goes out to those who have Bruker spectrometers with cryoprobes, particularly of recent make. How do you deal with power outages? Is it usual to avoid power outages for the entire lab by connecting a backup generator to the whole lab or whole building power supply? If that is not available, how do you avoid a disorderly shutdown of the cryoplatform in a power outage, and ensure that when a shutdown happens the probe is protected from damage?
Our configuration has a UPS covering the console, console computer, and sample changer, but the helium compressor (outdoor air cooled) is powered by hard wired 208 V 3-phase that has no battery or other backup, and the CCU is not on the UPS. I thought maybe the CCU should be powered though the UPS, but that would at least take a long extension cord, given their positions on the floor. Perhaps if the console, computer, and CCU still have power, the CCU goes into warm up mode when it discovers the compressor is no longer working? However, the UPS battery backup power would not last long enough for warmup to complete.
Does anyone have a methodology for detecting that the system has been on UPS backup power long enough to signal an outage (rather than a short power blink) and responding by stopping any acquisition, ejecting the sample into the sample changer, and signaling the CCU to warm up? That sounds rather complicated to do, so I am doubtful. Any information about fail-safes would be helpful. Thanks.
Margaret
Received on Mon Jun 22 2020 - 07:17:34 MST