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:
I do not know why this happens, but service issues seem to run in cycles at SeqGen. Lately we’ve been hearing quite a bit about your 3730 autosamplers. Maybe your machines are still “falling back”! At any rate, we would like to share some interesting tricks that may help you get those “pesky” autosamplers working again.
Let’s dig into two of the more common issues and discuss what might be the possible problems.
We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and the pleasant memories are still looming with each bite of leftover turkey. For those of us that spent our holiday with our teenagers, we are well aware of that vacant blank stare when attempting any kind of communication at times! I think I will start texting my kid when it is time to clean up the dishes after the meal. Seems to be the only acceptable form of communication these days…
Ok, so I know it’s not Spring just yet. I was quickly reminded of this fact this morning as my teeth were chattering while I brushed the snow off my car. But, warm weather is just around the corner and with it are many spring-cleaning projects.
The weather may still be cold, but now is a great time to do some cleaning around the lab. Your sequencer requires a good tune-up every year to make sure it is working properly. So to help guide you through this cleanup, we’ve listed some of the most common problems you may run into.
