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the lab is working again
Oct. 19th, 2020 07:15 pmThe week before last the LA-ICP-MS worked just fine, and I ran an experiment. Last Tuesday I went in to set up an experiment for one of our PhD students, the first part of the process took all morning (and I work only half time). Wednesday I went in to do the final steps of the set up and to actually run it. Sadly, when I to do the performance report it failed on the mass calibration. I tried the easy way to solve it--leave it in laser mode, but switch sample holders to put a different standard reference material into the machine, and run the "mass calibration" program. Sadly, it didn't work. But then I had been in the lab five hours, so I called it good for the day and tried again on Thursday. Spent another five hours on Thursday, and nothing worked.
On Friday I had a video meeting and a couple of other things that needed doing, so I just worked from home, and didn't return to the lab till today (Monday). This time I switched the ICP-MS over to solutions mode, and it still wasn't working. Eventually I checked with a colleague, and she found me the bottle of "calibration solution" (I had been using the "tune solution) and then it finally worked. After I got both the detector set up and the mass calibration to run successfully I was able to turn off the plasma, switch back to laser mode, and then do normal tuning stuff to get a passing performance report. Then I edited the lab book to run only his smallest map (of four), since that would take just over one hour. While it ran I went to the gym and did a 35 minute yoga session, then returned to the lab, did the shut down tasks, and walked home.
This was my first time walking in ages. Between the snowfall last night and the night before that, and the warm temps (hovering back and forth around freezing) the ground was kinda slushy, and I didn't want to ride my trike in. So I took the bus this morning. But I finished work a good 35 minutes before the next bus, so rather than waiting I decided to walk. Normally I do the walk in about 45 minutes, so would have gotten home about the same time as if I had taken the bus. However, with the slush and my walking gently so as not to aggravate the knee that had been bothering me a couple of weeks ago, I took 54 minutes today. (Which meant that I had just gotten to the the bend in the bike path where I could see the bus stop closest to the house up ahead when the bus turned the corner and stopped there. It took me another seven minutes to get as far as the stop, so if I had waited that 35 minutes I would have gotten home sooner.
After that walk it was necessary to curl up on the couch for 45 minutes with an old favourite book and a bowl of popcorn (decorated with nettle-butter, nutritional yeast, and fresh chopped spinach, purple carrot, and cucumber), followed by a half-hour nap. Now I can process the new registrations for Norrskensfesten and hopefully do something else useful with my evening (and probably a bit more yoga) before bed. Tomorrow I will run more of the student's maps.
One more week till Elnaz arrives...
On Friday I had a video meeting and a couple of other things that needed doing, so I just worked from home, and didn't return to the lab till today (Monday). This time I switched the ICP-MS over to solutions mode, and it still wasn't working. Eventually I checked with a colleague, and she found me the bottle of "calibration solution" (I had been using the "tune solution) and then it finally worked. After I got both the detector set up and the mass calibration to run successfully I was able to turn off the plasma, switch back to laser mode, and then do normal tuning stuff to get a passing performance report. Then I edited the lab book to run only his smallest map (of four), since that would take just over one hour. While it ran I went to the gym and did a 35 minute yoga session, then returned to the lab, did the shut down tasks, and walked home.
This was my first time walking in ages. Between the snowfall last night and the night before that, and the warm temps (hovering back and forth around freezing) the ground was kinda slushy, and I didn't want to ride my trike in. So I took the bus this morning. But I finished work a good 35 minutes before the next bus, so rather than waiting I decided to walk. Normally I do the walk in about 45 minutes, so would have gotten home about the same time as if I had taken the bus. However, with the slush and my walking gently so as not to aggravate the knee that had been bothering me a couple of weeks ago, I took 54 minutes today. (Which meant that I had just gotten to the the bend in the bike path where I could see the bus stop closest to the house up ahead when the bus turned the corner and stopped there. It took me another seven minutes to get as far as the stop, so if I had waited that 35 minutes I would have gotten home sooner.
After that walk it was necessary to curl up on the couch for 45 minutes with an old favourite book and a bowl of popcorn (decorated with nettle-butter, nutritional yeast, and fresh chopped spinach, purple carrot, and cucumber), followed by a half-hour nap. Now I can process the new registrations for Norrskensfesten and hopefully do something else useful with my evening (and probably a bit more yoga) before bed. Tomorrow I will run more of the student's maps.
One more week till Elnaz arrives...