Discussion Category: DNA Sequence Analyzers
PhD candidate A. Jernigan
we have an ABI 3130 that has suddenly stopped giving any peaks. It tests for normal current, passes, does the run, but all that shows is background noise. When we look at the EPT chart, the current is high (normal) during the test, then just drops out and never recovers. We have water washed, checked for bubbles, replaced polymer and the array and the buffer is fresh. When replacing the array, we did a spatial calibration and it came out very strange. According to someone at ABI the spatial requires current also. Is the anything I can do to fix this myself? Or will we have to have a service call? I'd really like to finish my research and graduate!
Reply byHello A. Are you getting any error messages in the event log? If you are getting a bad spatial, it is not the current. The EP circuit is not used during spatial, it is just the laser and CCD taking an image of the array. If you have the service diagnostics software loaded on the computer you can run the laser power test and check it's performance. Do you know how old the laser is?
If you want to contact me directly, I'm sure we can figure out what the problem is pretty quickly. janet@certsci.com