Elan 9000 ICPMS Communication Error

Hi,

I'm having a little bit of difficulty with my ELAN 9000 system. We only use it twice a week (Tuesday + Thursday) and had no issues the last time I used it. Today when I tried and turn on the plasma, the roughing pump makes a loud grinding sound and immediately the system switch gets shut off, resulting in a communications failure.

I've rebooted the PC and the instrument. - No difference

Checked the oil - Oil looks fine. Was changed a month and a half ago on both vacuum pumps.

RF coil did look a little burnt on a small area of it, but without a RF coil replacement I have no way to test this out.

Are there any diagnostic, or troubleshooting tips you all can give me on this matter? Could it be that the roughing pump has simply gone out?

Thanks for any help.

 

Communication failures where the system breaker is tripped (one of the four breakers located on the right hand side of the instrument at the end) are almost always related to the interface roughing pump (the larger of the two mechanical pumps under the instrument-the one on the right when facing the instrument).  When you looked at the oil, did you just assess the level of the oil or did you assess both the level and the color of the oil?  If you did not note the color, then it may be worth changing the oil again, because sometimes those windows in the pump get caked up with oil residue over time making it difficult to assess the color of the oil.  Also, with you running it infrequently, that oil sits around and can get more viscous as it is cold because the pump is not working.  That viscosity can lead to clumping and just plain poor circulation.  One other thing to check is the mist chamber attached to the roughing pump.  Make sure that it is not full.  If it is then you need to go ahead and drain the oil out of there. 

(Althouth this is less likey given the fact that your system breaker is getting tripped) If that roughing pump is making a lot of noise then it could be indicative of a leak in the vacuum system.  Have you done any maintenance right before this problem first occured?  If so then you need to re-check your work and make sure you do not have an o-ring off somewhere (I.e. if you cleaned the lens then it is possible that when you put the chamber lid back on and screwed it down, that the large oring that lines the ridge on the side that faces down, has come loose and shifted out of its groove.  When this happens it will cause an extremley rough sound when that turbo pump kicks down.  If not there, then check the interface itself...if you changed cones, then check those and make sure the o-rings and cones are in properly.  Sometimes if one of the cones is put in just slightly off, then it will cause an air leak and cause the o ring to actually melt and gunk up the gate.

When you got into your faults log, what is the specific fault code that the software is giving you--is it just the "communication failure"? If it was not for the abnormal noise of the interface roughing pump, then I would tell you to check all of your IEEE cables and connections and make sure that they are secure as would I tell you to check the IEEE card itself within the PC to make sure that it has not become slightly disloged from the mother board.

Then there is always the situation that your interface roughing pump is the problem.  I dont know how old this pump is, but it may need to be removed from the instrument and serviced.  If you have a spare sitting around, then I would try switching the spare out for the current one and see if that helps.

Make sure first and foremost to go into the service mode and check all of your gagues and pressure and specs there to make sure that you are not registering any other faults which are not visible when not in the service mode.  If you dont know how to go into service mode, then you just need to go up to options and click on it and when the drop down box appears, choose the selcection "enter service mode"--it will prompt you for a password and all Elans are set with the same password which is "Elan9000" and it is case sensitive.  Now, if someone in your lab has changed that password from the default, then you will have to find out what the password is, but as long as they have not, then the Elan9000 password should work.

Also, what did your last daily performance look like? (especially the RSD's).  Also when looking back at your instrument log book, have you seen a lot of fluctuating in vacuum pressure?  If you can provide me with more info then I can better assist you if none of the above helps solve your problems.

Tox

It looks like you need to replace your big roughing pump Varian DS602.
But try new oil first.
Good Luck

Hello,
I'm coming here to see if any one can help me with a communication failure in my ELAN DRC-e from PE.

After a week with no use, I tried to start the ELAN, and I notted a Strange error alert that said: RF Generator communication failure >> RF generator OK, and it was repeated every minute. I re-started de PC and the Isntrument, and the problem goes out. Three days later, the problem appeared again, and remains untill now.

I followed the troubleshooting: Re-start PC and Instrument, reset the system, clean torch, coil, cones, ionic lens, shadow stop, and nothing happened. Remove and secure the IEEE cables, and the problem did not goes. The diagnostic said: "An RF generator communication failure has occured. Check the torch box switch..." I revise each part of the torch box, and put each part in its place, and nothing happened.
Finally, I decided to enter the service mode and I noticed that the torch box appeared as OPEN (even when it is closed!). Other alert I sow was that the water flow was "LOW". In fact, the manometer of the chiller indicates 45 psi instead of the 55 recommended psi. So, I cleaned the induction coil, and passed mili-q water through it. The problem remained anyways.

Is there anybody that could bring me a possible solution to this issue?

Thanks

The fault "RF Generator Communication Failure" is typically thrown when the oil in the interface roughing pump needs to be changed (The larger of the two mechanical pumps down at the bottom of the instrument).  So the first thing I would do is change your oil and then go ahead and re-set the system and see if that helps your issue.

As for the other issue with your main water flow state being low and especially with the pressure on your chiller being high, I would say that it is time to add some more water or coolant to your chiller.  Depending on what type of chiller you have will determine whether you need to add only water or only coolant or a combination of both.  If you have a NesLab by Poly Sci then usually those just take plain tap water and should be filled all the way to the first thread of the slot where the cap screws in.  If the water/coolant level in the chiller gets too low, then it is not going to be able to push enough chilled water through the system thus causing your torch box temperature to become too high which will flag the torch box in the red.

I believe that if you do the above two things (change oil in roughing pump and add water/coolant to the chiller) that this will solve your issues.  If you do these things and are still having issues then let me know.

Thanks ToxLabRat for your reply!

Before reading your message, I noticed that the interface and the torch cower had some dust. I cleaned these parts with a clean cloth and then with Ar gas. After that, I checked the proper contact of the sensors' connectors (behind the torch box). Although the ELAN did not start properly at first, I reset the entire system (along with the PC) and it started normally. So far, there is no problem...

However, I will change the oil of the interface pump and re-fill the water container of the chiller, just in case...

Thanks for your interest!!

I hope this solution helps other users with this issue!

Raúl

Hi all, I am experiencing a particular problem with our ELAN 9000.
Of recent, I am only obtaining zeros for all my signals. A few days before, I was able to light  the plasma, and run smart tune daily with passing, with no trouble whatsoever.
A couple days after, (after changing the argon tanks) I proceeded to do the same and the plasma lit with ease however in running smart tune daily, i noticed no values (all zeros) in the realtime window and of course, it failed.

We tried a number of things, mainly:
1. We switched tanks thinking that it wasnt argon we received
2.We re-installed the software, thinking it was a software issue
3. Checked neb flow (everything was fine), also changed RF coil, cleaned cones etc. (usual maintenance)
4. Checked to ensure QPS board is functioning and it is.

All of these were carried out with no success in positive signal.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Does your slit open after starting the plasma?

by slit, do you mean the gate valve?
if so then yes

there are no errors shown in any of the parameters when we enter service mode.

@MSResTechTT:

Did you do anything at all to the instrument just prior to this issue occuring (I.e. clean lens, clean cones, etc)?  One common thing that causes you to have no counts is a failure to reconnect the lens power supply after cleaning or replacing your lens.  So if you did any work where you disconnected the lens, then I would go back and check that you did snap the wires back together.  I would also check and make sure that the wires are not coming loose from the housing itself as those small wires on the lens housing are notorious for breaking because they are so fine and the weld is weak. 

If you are certain that your problem is not lens related, then I would do a pulse and analog stage optimization as well as a dual detector calibration.  I have seen several times where stage voltages and dual detector calibration are so off that when trying to run a Daily Performance assessment, there are no counts at all for any of the analytes.

Another thing that I have seen happen many times, is that your sample is not getting aersolized properly.  So if you didnt actually take the end cap off of the spray chamber and watch the liquid sample flow through the sample tip and get aersolized by the neb tip, then I would suggest doing that.  Just because you see your sample flowing through the pump tubing and into the spray chamber and you see the waste flowing out of the spray chamber, it doesnt automatically mean that your sample is actually getting aersolized and pushed through the interface to the mass spectrometer.  You can have good sample flow, but without a properly functioning nebulizer tip, it will never go anywhere but straight down the waste line. 

I would say that it is most likely not your argon tank being bad, as the plasma would not light or stay lit if the argon tank was failing.

I would not think it is a bad IEEE cable or even an IEEE card, as typically when these go bad or have become loose, you will have a communication error and cannot even light the plasma because the communication error causes the entire system to fault out in red.

It is not the gate, as the plasma will not light and sustain without the gate functioning properly.

Check your capacitor....it is in the little box (seperate screws and cover) behind your detector. I had the same problem (zero counts) and burn marks were visible on the board with the capacitor (it stemmed from a power problem). I know an electronics tech that can refurbish them if that is the problem.

@ ToxLabRat

Thanks for your reply

We did not do any cleaning etc prior to this issue.. and we rechecked the wires to make sure eberything was intact. I am thinking about rechecking for loose wires just to make sure.

When we ran pulse and analog stage optimization, we are getting seeing counts in the realtime window. However, when we run a standard/dual detector solution, we are still not seeing any counts.

We also checked to make sure that there is flow through sample tip and also through the neb tip.

@ riverbrat

thanks for your input. will try that

Are you getting "actual" counts or are they staying the same the whole way through the optimization? If you have counts and they are satying the same I would suggest looking at the capacitor.
Are you using argon for your pulse and analog? If you are and you sere counts that are changing normally, it is most likely a sample introduction problem. If the argon counts a not changing...look at your lens wired and your capacitor.

One thing I ran across not that long ago was an issue of the pulse stage and analog stage optimization settings not saving properly.  Basicaly I would run the pulse stage optimization, it would optimize and reset to a different voltage and it would appear to save, even when I switched over to a different workspace.  However as soon as I would start to analyze within the new workspace, it would revert back to the old settings.  It was really weird and easy to miss as well.  It took more than an hour with a PE service engineer and conferencing in a PE applications engineer, before we finally found what was causing the issue.  Turned out to be one corrupt file that was the root of the problem and once we located it and deleted it everything went back to saving as it should.  So I would check to make sure that is not happening to you as well, especially since it is such a simple thing to check.

 Hello I have a communications failure on the IEEE and turbo pump oil all over the place .more to follow....