Rotor removal

You can try squirting some silicone spray or WD40 around the hold-down screw hole but be judi ious in your application. "A little dab'l do ya".

If that fails support the rotor while an associate taps gently with a dowel (chunk of wood) on the top. The issue here is damage to the drive suspension if you tap to vigorously.

Definitely try the penetrating oil. I prefer triflow but most any should work.  Do not be afraid to grab the underside of the rotor and pull up firmly after the oil has has a chance to work for about an hour or so.  There is very little to damage around the motor assembly.

Don

Thanks for the info.  I think this thing has not been cleaned/mantained in quit some time.

If or when you get the rotor off of the drive spindle, please be sure to apply some spinkote or other light grease to the spindle and screw threads on the tie down screw.

Don

Loosen screw sightly and while pulling up on rotor strike screw sharply with top of a plastic or wooden handled screw driver. If rotor doesn't come off, rotate it 180 degrees and repeat. DO NOT USE a steel hammer. Good Luck

In almost 33 years with Beckman working on ALL kinds of centrifuges, I think I ended up using a hammer only 3 or 4 times to free up a rotor from a spindle and NEVER on a  as small as a Microfuge 1i.  I'm not saying it can't or won't work but I would only consider it as a last resort. 

Give the penetrating oil a chance to work and pull up sharply with both hands underneath the rotor.

Don

Some types of penetrating oil such as ones that loosen rusted nuts can make problem worse by reacting with aluminium rotor further binding it to steel shaft.

That is why I use TriFlow. It is a penetrating teflon based oil and has never been a problem for me or anyone else that I ever worked with. Most of Beckman's benchtop centrifuges were actually shipped with a bottle of TriFlow and a small tube of Spinkote. Good luck with your problem.

Don, The oil worked. However, it took about 2 days to unseize. Walked this AM and it came off easily. Now another question: how do you remove the outer case to get to the solenoids inside for the latching mechanism. You have 2 screws on the front left & right sides, 2 screws that are part of the hood (door) on the rear left & right, but it doesn't appear that those need to be removed. On the bottom a series of nuts (that most likely hold the motor in place and should not be removed. It appears a small screw is on the bottom, but due to corrosion it is difficult to tell. What's the magic trick? Thanks

Jeff, There are 4 nuts on the bottom of the centrifuge. Remove all four and you should be able to just pull the outer shell of the centrifuge straight up. Of course, the two knobs must be removed and they just pull straight up too. There is also the connection between the touch panel and the inside of the centrifuge that must be carefully disconnected. Once you have everything loose it should be fairly apparent how to get everything else apart. As some others have posted, they saw a grease on the solenoid plungers which I personally never saw but check for it none the less. If it is there then remove it completely and be sure that there are no score marks on the plunger either that can cause problems. The switches are another issue as I usually found that they were the source of the latch issues that I encountered but that's just my history with the Microfuge 18/22R centrifuges. Get back to me when you can.

Don