Hi Danni,
It could be a range of things, mostly user-fixable (eg broken lead to sheath
level detector, jammed or broken level sensor, faulty pressure transducer,
water in the air line, faulty low laser power, poor sample seal, amongst
others), what does it say in your status control panel?
On my Calibur on run with a tube on, the sample voltage (inversely related
to pressure) stabilises at around 6.4 on low flow rate and 6.1 on high
(these voltage are higher than for my FACSort), if the voltage on your
status panel works this way then you can rule out the sample seal (bal
seal?).
The laser power should be around 15mW shortly after switch on (it might drop
into standby, where the power stays at around 3.5 - 5 mW after a while
depending on the cause of your problem), if it's significantly lower than
15mW it might prevent the machine switching to ready, you can either locate
the potentiometer that controls laser power and turn it up, or seek further
advice. If the current is high you'll probably need a new tube or head
eventually.
The waste and sheath should show up as "OK", if not look further for
connection problems. In the case of the sheath tank, you could try removing
the probe from the tank and inverting the probe so that the float slides up
the shank, it should register OK when inverted, and empty when upright (if
it never shows "OK", try short circuiting the connector using a paper clip
until you get a new probe). If short-circuiting doesn't work, investigate
the wiring under the slide-out tray.
If the waste shows as full when it's not, check for short circuits
(unplugging the probe from the machine should register "OK")
If, on run, with the sample-support arm swung to one side, the sample
voltage doesn't rise to 10.23 or nearby, it could be that the air pump or
regulators need attention, or it could be that water has been introduced
into the air line from the sample port - follow the tubing inside the
machine and replace the hydrophobic filters (0.2 micron PTFE syringe
filters)
Lastly, it could be that you've got an air-lock in the sheath filter, try
bleeding it into the waste tank by releasing the tube clamp.
This isn't an exhaustive list, nor are all of these suggestions necessarily
relevant to the symptom you've reported - if you send me some feedback I'll
try to be more specific if you don't get better-informed advice elsewhere
(B-D or Ray Lannigan perhaps? - how about putting the troubleshooting
flowchart on the web Ray?)
Good Luck,
Ray
Ray Hicks
________________________________________________________________________
|University of Cambridge |Tel 01223 330149 |
|Department of Medicine |Fax 01223 336846 |
|Level 5, Addenbrookes Hospital |e-mail <rh208@cus.cam.ac.uk> |
|Hills Road Cambridge |Web http://facsmac.med.cam.ac.uk |
|CB2 | http://www.med.cam.ac.uk |
|UK |ftp server ftp://131.111.80.78 |
|_________________________________|_____________________________________|
> From: "Dhanwanthie Ramduth" <Ramduthd1@nu.ac.za>
> Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 16:34:48 +0200
> To: Cytometry Mailing List <cytometry@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu>
> Subject: facs calibur
>
>
> dear flow cytometrists
>
> we have been experiencing a problem with our facs calibur recently. the
> cytometer cannot
> switch from the standby to ready mode. when attempting to acquire data, it
> always
> comes up withn a warning message " cytometer status not ready". we have
> folowed the
> trouble shooting guide, and and always ensure taht the machine is pressurised,
> and all
> connections are intact. what could be the cause of this problem? and how do we
> solve it?
>
> kind regards
> danni
>
>
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