All,
I'm doing a lot of combined WDS-EDS point measurements in Probe For EPMA now (EDS for majors, WDS for traces...). We're getting very good and consistent major element data for the combined WD-ED acquisitions, but every now and then Pathfinder crashes during an overnight run (yesterday when acquiring point no. 90 at 1am in the morning). When I come in the next morning the Pathfinder window has closed and PfE sits there waiting with the beam still on the last position where it crashed. At least this was olivine and not a more beam sensitive material...
This is using PfE 11.9.5 and Pathfinder 1.2, Workstation Build 72, Analyzer Build 190, both running under Windows 10 on the same PC.
In addition to the ED spectra I also acquire automated BSE images for each point through Thermo. But I think this happens during spectrum acquisition, as the beam conditions I encounter the morning after are the ones for the x-ray intensities measurement, not the the BSE imaging. This is a JEOL 8530F Plus instrument.
Any suggestions how to troubleshoot this? So far it only has happened twice during long runs over night.
Many thanks,
Karsten