On a hot steamy June day in The-Middle-of-Nowhereville, Wisconsin, a SeqGen field service engineer was on his way to a routine preventative maintenance service call. As he hums along with the radio, suddenly he hears the sickening flop, flop, flop, of a flat tire. No problem! This is a field service engineer right? Well it would not have been a problem had there been a spare tire in the trunk of the rental car! Ok – call for roadside assistance. Oh no – no cell signal! To make a long story short – after a 30-minute hike along a deserted, hot, asphalt highway, he finally gets a cell signal, calls for roadside assistance and is soon back on his way.

Two weeks ago, during an unusually warm spell on the east coast, I received a text message from a friend who was suffering through the misfortune of a failed air conditioner. I was of course more than sympathetic as I sat in my nice cool home and insisted that she move her family into my guest bedroom. She politely declined and suffered through the calamity until she could get the unit replaced. Unfortunately she did not have a service contract and had to fork over a hefty chunk of her hard earned savings to replace the heat pump.

If there is a 50-50 chance that something can go wrong, then 9 times out of ten it will.– PAUL HARVEY, AMERican Journalist

Do you remember what you were doing on December 31, 1999? If you bought into the conspiracy theory drama, you were stockpiling food and water stores, emptying your banks accounts to store under a remote mattress, as well as confirming that your storage closets were completely filled with extra batteries, candles, backpacks, firearms, and fuel reserves. We all waited with apocalyptic expectation as the countdown to midnight began. And then… nothing happened!

Last week was such an exciting week in Dallas at Promega’s 26th International Symposium on Human Identification.  Exhibitors and participants alike were treated to a week packed full of exciting presentations and announcements.  Promega is the ultimate host! 

Have you ever had one of those annoying garden hoses that leaks no matter what you seem to do?  You change that little washer a zillion times but water is still erupting from one end or the other!  Similarly, this seems to be the topic of the month at SeqGen for our qPCR and thermal cycler customers.  Several calls and emails have come in detailing customer frustration over sample evaporation around the edges of their plates or lids cracking on the 9700 thermal cycler.

How can something so small, cause so many problems? The other day Charles, one of our field service engineers, shared some observations that he frequently makes in many of the labs he visits.  Here is an excerpt from his email that you may find interesting:

“Recently, I realized our customers were having pump system issues on the 3130/3730 because of over-twisting the capillary array knob. The knob can even break the capillary if it is adjusted improperly.”

Here are Charles’ suggestions for pump system maintenance: