James
Greetings fellow flow cytometrists
We recently acquired a new dual laser facscalibur. We have had some serious problems with the stability of the red diode laser. In two months, the laser has been changed out three times and our fourth service call for the same problem will commence tomorrow. Typically, one will observe a decline in sensitivity in fluorescence in channels that rely on the use of the diode laser, accompanied by a large increase in the amount of compensation required for those same fluorescence channels (I am being deliberately non-specific here to accomodate those who do not have BD instruments, for those facscalibur users, I am obviously talking about FL4, but this would depend on the fluorochromes that were being used etc). I went with BD because my previous long experience with the highly reliable Facsscan and the fact that I really needed two lasers. Unfortunately, the other laser is not useful if it is unreliable.
Have others experienced this problem, particularly since BD switched suppliers for the diode laser?
This is making me crazy. Any info you have on this would be useful. I am working with BD on this (upper management has been pretty responsive), but currently I have not seen a permanent solution to the problem.
-James
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