Here's the scoop:
Our Department recently bought one (without consulting me WRT specs,
evaluation,...etc.), and it was installed last October. I'm actually NOT
the person in charge of it (it's for U.G. teaching, and we have another
person in charge of the U.G. instrument lab), but I get called every time
something goes wrong with it. Up 'till now, all they've been doing is
routine 1D Carbon and proton; however, a professor wanted to do 2D COSY,
HETCOR, and a DEPT. I volunteered to help get them going, and I spent
the last 6 hours trying to successfully perform these "advanced"
experiments on one sample!
Bottom line is that the GLIDE macros (the new "push-button" software)
do not work at all, the auto-lock and auto-shim features fail 90% of
the time, and it's driving our undergraduate students nuts. The feeling
that I get from the people at Varian is that they are SURPRISED that we
are having trouble. Therefore, if anybody is having good luck using the
"turn-key" automation software on a Gemini-2000, I'd love to hear about it.
A WORD OF WARNING to anybody considering purchasing one of these beasts...
Make sure to write in some sort of assurance of the functionality of the
automated acquisition software into the purchase agreement. The professor
who arranged our purchase didn't specify anything beyond the normal S/N,
Lineshape,...etc., specs (which were nicely exceeded upon installation).
However, for an instrument such as this, those specs mean almost nothing
compared to the ease of use and stability for a user base who know
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about doing NMR (i.e. sophomore undergrads).
Some of my colleagues out there called me shortly after we installed the
instrument for a recommendation, and I said it was working fine...because
we hadn't yet tried to use it beyond "manual" operation. I hope I didn't
steer anyone wrong, but we are just now finding out how unreliable the
instrument appears to be in a high-traffic, undergraduate setting.
I would not recommend accepting such an instrument before it demonstrates
stable operation for a wide range of samples/solvents which would simulate
a realistic undergraduate laboratory setting. (I actually don't know how
one would pull that one off, but it was a thought)
I'll look forward to discussing the details with anybody who's interested
at ENC, and I TRULY hope that Varian is able to do something to make the
instrument do what it was purchased to do.
Sorry about any typos, but I'm tired!!
Richard Shoemaker, Ph.D. Phone--(402) 472-6255
Instrumentation Director, Chemistry FAX---- -9402
Research Associate Proffessor, Chemistry
University of Nebraska-Lincoln