The graphite furnace atomic absorption unit I'm working with is acting up, and I was wondering if anyone here could help me try to fix it. The instrament is a Perkin Elmer Zeeman 5100, but I'm not sure how old it is.
The problem is that when I try to run a sample the instrament says that the tube burns out right before the vaporization stage. The tube will go through a conditioning run both before and after it's said to have burned out, so it can't be the tube. (if it's helpfull, the conditioning run goes up to 2650 degrees C, while the vaporization stage goes up to 2600 degrees.) The tube has been replaced, the contact cylenders have been raplaced, and the circut board has been fixed (there were a few minor problems with it; the machine's fairly old), but nothing seems to help. The only other thing anyone I've spoken with can think of is to take the unit apart and look at the wires themselves, and no one wants to do that because of the work it'd take to re-calibrate the unit.
Again, any help you could offer would be appreciated. Thank you.

James Ver. said:

The graphite furnace atomic absorption unit I'm working with is acting up, and I was wondering if anyone here could help me try to fix it. The instrament is a Perkin Elmer Zeeman 5100, but I'm not sure how old it is. The problem is that when I try to run a sample the instrament says that the tube burns out right before the vaporization stage. The tube will go through a conditioning run both before and after it's said to have burned out, so it can't be the tube. (if it's helpfull, the conditioning run goes up to 2650 degrees C, while the vaporization stage goes up to 2600 degrees.) The tube has been replaced, the contact cylenders have been raplaced, and the circut board has been fixed (there were a few minor problems with it; the machine's fairly old), but nothing seems to help. The only other thing anyone I've spoken with can think of is to take the unit apart and look at the wires themselves, and no one wants to do that because of the work it'd take to re-calibrate the unit. Again, any help you could offer would be appreciated. Thank you.

I think you should contact the manufacturing company: Perkin Elmer, click on the following URL:

http://las.perkinelmer.com/Contact+Us/default.htm?Region=North%20America

One of the professors here is going to do that. We just hit a point where we didn't know what else to do, and we figured someone else may have run into the same problem.

it's the wires I've had this happen before if your handy with tools you can fix it I had to dismantle the magnet surounding the furnace and the replace then reroute the faulty wire. seems the opening and closing of the door over time caused it to fail


If too much at stake if you go into the machine call p/e will cost $$$$