The theme song for today is an old classic; play this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZUE4_PtOk0 in the background while you read the rest of this post. A water leak on an upper floor caused a rainstorm on the floors below, including in the Shared Instrument Lab. The DSC and the CHN analyzer were impacted – quite literally –…
Cary 50 has been replaced
The Cary 50 UV-vis spectrometer has been out of service due to computer issues; the age of the system and the proprietary interface card make it quite difficult to support the instrument on modern computer hardware. The good news is that we’ve been able to replace the Cary 50 with a Cary 60 spectrometer! The…
Lab closure due to planned power outage
A campus power outage planned for Wednesday June 19th will impact Schrenk Hall; because the 19th is a university holiday, the Shared Instrument Lab will be closed from 4pm on Tuesday the 18th through 11am on Thursday the 20th, and all instruments will be shut down during that time. Neither the lab nor any of…
Computer upgrades in process
Over the next couple of weeks, the instrument host computers in the Shared Instrument Lab will be receiving upgrades. Consequently, there will be times when one or more of the instruments will not be available. Please check the instrument calendar in advance of your instrument need to be sure that the instrument you wish to…
Reservation automation repaired (fingers crossed)
The automation for the reservation request system is now repaired. The bad news is that reservation requests will be handled in batch fashion once every ten minutes, so from the time a reservation request is submitted until the time it is handled may be that long. The good news is that you will still use…
Calendar kludge in place, reservation automation still broken
With the campus sunset of Google Calendar, the existing calendar and the automation of the reservation system are broken. Using calendars on a personal Gmail account, we have provided a way to post instrument reservations online so that you, dear user, are able to easily see whether or not the instrument you wish to use…
Calendar frozen, reservation system down
Despite our protestations well in advance – and without a viable alternative being made available – Google Calendar has been shut off. The instrument reservation calendar is still viewable on this site, but the content is now static (nothing can be added). With Calendar as well as Gmail being shut off, the instrument reservation system…
New battery backups, temporarily n-1
Battery backups were recently installed on some of the instruments in room 140; we have learned over the years that a UPS is a prudent insurance policy. Sadly, the one for the DSC appears to have failed this morning, and failed in a way that suggests that replacement will be needed. In the short term…
Cary 5000 out of service temporarily
The Cary 5000 UV-vis spectrometer is temporarily out of service, awaiting a source replacement and alignment. Anyone needing UV-vis analysis of liquid samples can use the Cary 50, of course. We hope to have the Cary 5000 back in service in a few days (assuming parts come in promptly). UPDATE: it was promptly back in…
Lab closure due to planned power outage
Campus facilities personnel will be doing some electrical work on Monday, June 19th – they have scheduled it for that official holiday in order to minimize disruption to the campus community. Power to the entire campus is expected to be off twice – once at the commencement of the work and again when it has…