System maintenance/fix-it tips and tricks

[DavidAdams]

In light of current world events I would like to propose a sticky forum topic where we all can share our knowledge of problems we've encountered with our various instruments and solutions/fixes that we have come up with on our own or have been provided by the manufacturer. I think that we all have a lot of experience with instrument issues and hold a vast amount of knowledge, collectively, in our heads about we ultimately fixed whatever was ailing us and our machines.

[John Donovan]

This topic is now "sticky".  Please feel free to share your collective JEOL tips and tricks!

[jeolunlv12]

Hi David and JEOL users,

My jxa8900 shut down yesterday.

The N2 is 80 psi and chill water looks normal, all fuses are good. I turned off "consul electronics" and tried to turn on the main switch, there is no response from mechanic pump, only hear the fan turns. The main switch went back to off position after releasing it (usually it would be at on position if the pump starts).

Any suggestions what might be wrong?

Minghua

[DavidAdams]

Hi Minghua,

That seems to me like you might have something seized in your roughing pump. If the motor on one of the other components is seized then the pump will overload the circuit and it will trip the mains breaker.

I had the main motor on the 8900 at the USGS in Denver go out in November. The service engineer came out and replaced the pump motor and it started working just fine again.

I hope this helps!
Dave

[jeolunlv12]

Dave, thank you.

[DavidAdams]

I'm currently experiencing a problem with my PCD. Apparently is stuck in the closed position. I've adjusted the nitrogen pressure as per the service engineer's recommendations but that hasn't fixed anything.

Because of the COVID border restrictions in NZ I can't get a service engineer into the country to do anything about it and I have a probe that's suddenly become a very expensive, very heavy paperweight.

Does anyone have any tips, tricks, and/or suggestions as to how I can unstick my PCD?

Thanks!
David

[D.]

I'm currently experiencing a problem with my PCD. Apparently is stuck in the closed position. I've adjusted the nitrogen pressure as per the service engineer's recommendations but that hasn't fixed anything.

Because of the COVID border restrictions in NZ I can't get a service engineer into the country to do anything about it and I have a probe that's suddenly become a very expensive, very heavy paperweight.

Does anyone have any tips, tricks, and/or suggestions as to how I can unstick my PCD?

Thanks!
David

Hi David,

I posted elsewhere on the forum about my JEOL PCD problems a while back. Mine went through a year of sticking erratically without the engineer being able to fix it. Cleaning it fixed it for a week or two. We could observe scratching on the plate, so something had too much play in the mechanism.

Relevant to your problem: Initially the engineer tried to bend the spring *in a specific way*. Apparently that worked in Europe on a JEOL previously. But that didn't solve it. But you could try it if you're desparate?

Since then, I bought a new one. The problem came back several months after the new one was installed...we're monitoring it and I told them if it reccurs I'm invoking warranty. I wonder if the problem may be the composition of the alloy...I heard a rumor they changed the composition at some point.

Good luck,
Deon.

[DavidAdams]

Hi Deon,

Thank you for your reply. It's very interesting (and not very encouraging) that you are seeing similar behaviour on your instrument.

I've found that when the PCD gets completely stuck and stops retracting entirely that if I vent the chamber, exercise the PCD for a few seconds then evacuate the instrument once again that the PCD becomes unstuck but the problem always seems to return.

Hopefully once NZ border restrictions are eased then I can get a service engineer over here to have a look at it.

Best,
David

[Probe321]

External Control Device:  While having the JXA8530F-Plus upgraded to a Windows 10 computer from the Windows 7 computer went smoothly. The new computer was configured to the 8530F when it was shipped, basically worked right out of the box.  Had IT connect the 8530 F to the network.  Probe for EPMA could not connect to the 8530F. Absolutely no communications between the two computers. Installed the current network card drivers, no success. Tried changing ports no success.  The service engineer was as frustrated as I was.  What caused the communications to fail that worked before? There is switch that service has access to call “External Control Device”.  That switch box got unchecked when the network was installed.  Rechecked the “External Control Device” box and communications was restored.  So if your Probe for EPMA computer looses communications with the JEOL microprobe, check to see if the “External Control Device” switch is still checked.

[jeolunlv12]

Thank you David for this topic.

All,

Sorry, this is not related to the probe.

I have a JEOL jsm6700f FESEM, a third party engineer is working on this instrument. He seems not very familiar with this model and want me to check if it is possible to get "a drawing of the column optics" of this model.

Does anyone have this kind of "column optics drawing" by any chance for the jsm6700f?

Thanks a lot.

Minghua

[Juvegre]

Hi All,

Need your advice. I am running a JEOL JXA 8900 Superprobe. The instrument works perfectly in terms of the analytical part. However, i have a question: in the CRT unit, where we have two monitors (left one for live images, and the right monitor showing the average images). I don`t know if we modify something from the EOS settings, however, the monitor at the left is OFF. We have no signal at all. Is it possible to provide any ideas-suggestions for checking whether is really dead or just deactivated by the software? BTW, by turning ON/OFF the whole unit (at the back there is a small white lever), we still got the same (no signal at the left monitor). Please let me know what you think and if you have related experience.

[John Donovan]

We were recently contacted by a customer who has been running Probe for EPMA and Probe Image successfully for years on their JEOL 8230, but who reported that both applications started "all of a sudden" having stability issues.  Re-starting the applications did not help.

They also mentioned they had recently had some Windows updates and wondered if that could be related to the issue. But we have these applications running fine on both Win 7 and Win 10 on many, many computers, all with the latest updates from Microsoft, with no reports of problems.

Finally we asked them to simply re-boot their instrument, and lo and behold, they reported that everything was running fine now!

We can only assume that over time the instrument microprocessor memory become fragmented or corrupted and that the microprocessor memory was actually the problem. Now although this is a JEOL topic board, I should mention that I have found that I need to re-boot our Cameca SX100 instrument about every six months for probably similar reasons.  Especially when it gets utilized 24/7.

And just by coincidence I was speaking this morning with a JEOL engineer and told him the story, and his response was that we should probably: "re-boot the instrument on a regular schedule" because this sort of problem is also seen in the JEOL software side of things after a period of time.

So, that's my tip for the day!

[Anette von der Handt]

Yes, I definitely find that I have to reboot my JEOL from time-to-time. When I say reboot, I mean closing the JEOL software, cycling the OPE Power, sometimes also cycling the intelligent unit and then starting the JEOL software again.

Often it is not so much stability issues but one of the other software locking up. Overall, if anything starts acting up, it is definitely worthwhile to do this (if possible) as part of the error tracing.

[DavidAdams]

Hi everybody,

This is a question about JEOL software behaviour.

So on the USGS Denver 8530F microprobe I could freely move around both the PC-SEM software window and the PC-EPMA window anywhere I wanted to on any of the screens connected to that computer. On my current setup (an I think some setups at Oz Unis) the PC-SEM Software is freely movable. The PC-EPMA side, however, opens up on a monitor when starting the JEOL software, locks itself into place, and becomes completely immovable. The Title Bar with the Max, Min, and X buttons is completely missing. The only way to get this window to relocate is to close the JEOL software completely, turn off the monitor that the PC-EPMA software decides to open itself on, then restart the software. This has the effect of opening the PC-EPMA software on a different screen but it still is locked and immoveable on the new monitor.

Does anyone have any idea how to get the PC-EPMA title bar back and to allow the window to be moved?

Thanks!
David

[Karsten Goemann]

I think it is related to the JEOL software version installed. The newer of the 8530s at UWA in Perth also has that window locked in position (but as far as I know it is fully visible), and I think at Melbourne Uni the window became locked when their JEOL software was updated. On our system (installed March 2017) we still have the movable window.