[3dem] small flashes in glow discharger?

[James Streetley]

Hi Tobias,

We had something very similar earlier this year with an easiGlow. In our situation, as well as the flashes, the reported emission was unstable. Here is a video of how ours behaved: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ep31sUPTv5vS4nGv5__;!!Mih3wA!GDZeqXe8fWucxLGkcwX4YK8gUs0Yv4RqVxEZ5D4x2iZ48d6vdbpNPLZ6k59eXRydnBZJ-K-cXP6RsabpLpt9nR3pOc4auVD1Xm0$ 

Agar Scientific and Ted Pella investigated and told us it was unusually dirty, contaminated by hydrocarbons broken down by the plasma. They gave it a deep clean and told us to give it a weekly clean with isopropanol. It seems it needs more care than our other glow discharger. I’m not sure what the deep cleaning step they did was, but once the discolouration and sparkles started, I gave it several good cleans with isopropanol and that didn’t shift it for me either. It might be complicated by us using it with pentylamine.

It wasn’t so much the sparkles that I found worrying, but the emission jumping around.

Cheers,
James

Dr James Streetley

SCMI Facility Manager
Scottish Centre for Macromolecular Imaging
Sir Michael Stoker Building
464 Bearsden Road
Glasgow
G61 1QH
United Kingdom

+44 141 330 2161 (office)
+44 141 330 7495 (microscope suite)
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/iii/cvr/facilities/scmi/__;!!Mih3wA!GDZeqXe8fWucxLGkcwX4YK8gUs0Yv4RqVxEZ5D4x2iZ48d6vdbpNPLZ6k59eXRydnBZJ-K-cXP6RsabpLpt9nR3pOc4a1Oelan0$ 

From: 3dem <3dem-bounces at ncmir.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Hagen, Wim J. <wim.hagen at thermofisher.com>
Date: Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 14:19
To: Tobias Furstenhaupt <furstenh at mpi-cbg.de>, 3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu <3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: [3dem] small flashes in glow discharger?
Hi Tobias,
I’ve had to clean the vacuum piping inside a few times due to backdraft oil from the pump (vacuum didn’t stabilize with oil trap).
Disconnect the back vacuum flange and stick a finger in to see if there’s oil.
Also had to clean the regulating valves a few times but that manifests itself by the device taking ages to get the set vacuum stable.
Best,
Wim
________________________________
From: 3dem <3dem-bounces at ncmir.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Tobias Furstenhaupt <furstenh at mpi-cbg.de>
Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2024 2:57:09 PM
To: 3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu <3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [3dem] small flashes in glow discharger?

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of Thermo Fisher Scientific. If you believe it to be suspicious, report using the Report Phish button in Outlook or send to SOC at thermofisher.com.


Dear colleagues,

we use the PELCO easiGlow to glow discharge our grids before plungefrezing (and for other uses) and pretty happy with it. But we noticed small flashes from the bottom (see attachment - sorry for the unstable focus). Cleaning with ethanol or isopropanol has no effect. Also the metal in this area looks less shiny and potentially has now a slightly rougher surface.
The quality of the glow discharge on our grids seems unchanged. Has anybody experiencied similar things and should we be worried?

cheers
Tobias

PS: if the attached video does not work for you, here another version:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://owncloud.mpi-cbg.de/index.php/s/ox67qdfPrREwrDn__;!!Mih3wA!BNvMHT2jzp_k9qHObg52qygdEWsHhp4-R065xzSAIV9B9qL0fXMnbJhrdBXxSoKtDvoCYoUwjjLBzARFAovGysA$

-----------------------------------
Tobias Fürstenhaupt, PhD
head of Electron Microscopy
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG)
Pfotenhauerstrasse 108
01307 Dresden, Germany

mail: furstenh at mpi-cbg.de
phone: (+49) (0)351 210-2690
cell: (+49) (0)176 / 44498706 (NEW!)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.ncmir.ucsd.edu/pipermail/3dem/attachments/20240716/2f30fd50/attachment-0001.html>