Are you indeed referring to the oil-filled high voltage transformer core in the older model generators? (Newer ones tend to use solid state voltage multipliers). I recall that there were issues with those things that were eventually traced to elevated humidity. Now, that was humidity around 80% which should not be the case for most systems these days since most of us seem to prefer humidity controlled environments (for the sake of the cryostreams) but it might be worth checking some local leaks etc. One more reason that the tank transformer might go bad would be inadequate matching between power input and drain, especially high-drain situation caused by an undetected high current (like a parasite current too weak to cause arcing, but strong enough to damage transformer over time). Did your/Rigaku's engineer check the voltages and currents in the tube tower? Do you have the option to record currents while no one is attending the instrument (in the even that the problem is intermittent)?
Artem On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 8:51 AM, Patrick Loll <pat.l...@drexel.edu> wrote: > Bill, > > What do you mean by "high voltage tank"? When I hear this term, I think of > the oil- (and PCB-) filled tank housing the transformer on an old generator; > but there's nothing like that on the R-Axis. Do you mean the blue box > housing the detector controller? If so, then I can tell you that we've had > ours plugged into a 1000 VA UPS (APC Back UPS Pro) for 10 years, with never > a glitch (and I'm told that Philly power is not pretty). > > If instead you're referring to the high voltage tank on the generator, then > I have no idea of what to do (although replacing the power cable doesn't > sound like a bad idea)...you'd probably need to steal an entire 7-11 to pay > for a UPS large enough to condition power for that. > > Pat > > On 26 Sep 2011, at 10:15 PM, William G. Scott wrote: > > > Hi Citizens: > > > > We seem to run through high voltage tanks on our Raxis IV like guano goes > through a goose. Has anyone else had this problem, and, more importantly, > what is the best way to protect them. I am assuming it might have something > to do with our electrical supply, which is a bit unreliable. > > > > Also, does anyone have an extra used functional one they want to get rid > of? We've run out of 7-11s to rob to pay for this, and our friendly and > helpful radiation safety staff think the best way to deal with this problem > is to hack apart the power cable, so it is a current (so to speak) source of > frustration. > > > > > > Thanks in advance. > > > > Bill > > > > > > > > > > > > William G. Scott > > Professor > > Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry > > and The Center for the Molecular Biology of RNA > > 228 Sinsheimer Laboratories > > University of California at Santa Cruz > > Santa Cruz, California 95064 > > USA > > >
