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<p>As a follow up to Jason's suggestion, we survived for a year or two with our non-functional humidifier by putting a pair of small glass Petri dishes (on the order of 25 mm diameter) into the Vitrobot chamber, and then putting a piece of kitchen sponge and
some water into each. These won't dry out even during a long freezing run, and is somewhat less messy than damp Kimwipes...</p>
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-- </div>
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politics is more difficult than physics.</div>
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A. Einstein</div>
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David Gene Morgan<br>
Electron Microscopy Center<br>
047D Simon Hall<br>
IU Bloomington<br>
812 856 1457 (office)<br>
812 856 3221 (3200)<br>
http://iubemcenter.indiana.edu</div>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt" color="#000000" face="Calibri, sans-serif"><b>From:</b> 3dem <3dem-bounces@ncmir.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Jason Kaelber <jason.kaelber@rutgers.edu><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, April 23, 2018 11:22 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> 3dem@ncmir.ucsd.edu<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [3dem] Vitrobot humidifier problem</font>
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<p style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">Artemis, there are many things that could cause this problem. One of the quickest things to try is swap the water tank with a spare or one from another unit. Also try swapping the cable that connects the tank to the
unit.<span>I have seen both these parts go bad on a Mark IV and give an "empty" error.</span> If it is a board you are SOL until you get parts from FEI ThermoFisher.</p>
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<p style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">In the meantime, you can soak two Kimwipes and paste them to the chamber walls, this should keep your humidity high enough to get good ice if you are patient. When they get dry during freezing, you can put a squirt bottle
into the port where you would pipette specimen and spray it a bit. I can vouch for having solved at least one atomic structure under such conditions.
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<p style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">Best of luck</p>
<p style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">Jason</p>
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<div>--<br>
J T Kaelber, PhD<br>
Director, Rutgers New Jersey CryoEM/CryoET Core Facility<br>
Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine<br>
174 Frelinghuysen Rd<br>
Piscataway, NJ 08854</div>
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