Hi John,
Same thing happened to us a long time ago (when Agilent was still in business)
--> IIRC, the compressor exploded oil, crept up the helium supply line and
contaminated the indoor unit and cryobay. The system was still under warranty,
so we had Agilent swap out everything.
Mike's description below is bang on wrt to our experience:
*
You can check for oil at the helium return and supply line attachment points.
We do this as part of our cold head maintenance routine, checking for grease / oil
as Mike described.
*
we use an Aeroquip wrench to carefully detach the supply and return lines at the
indoor unit.
*
we then shine UV light on the inner face of the helium return and supply line and
at the connection points. Oil and grime will light up like a crime scene.
(FWIW, we purchased the following UV light for this purpose: Nite Ize Inova X5 “UV”
Lithium Powered LED Flashlight. I think ICE cryogenics supplied it, but if you can
order from the 'NiteIze' product site. As a bonus you'll also have a handy tool for
checking IDs and scorpion hunting (according to NiteIze) . . so there's that ; ) )
Final bit: we proactively swap the FA-70 outdoor unit every 50K hours.
Sorry to hear this happened -
Cheerios,
D.
_________________________________
Darcy C. Burns, Ph.D.
Manager, CSICOMP NMR Facility
University of Toronto
80 St. George Street
Toronto, ON
M5S 3H6
ph: (416)-978-0448
fax: (416)-978-8775
https://sites.chem.utoronto.ca/csicomp/
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Received on Tue Jul 29 2025 - 09:38:05 MST