8900 ICPMS auto tune parameters

Hi.

I have also 8900 and we use He 1mL/min. In my case, every parameter is ticked, so every parameter is assessed. Sometimes I fix Extract 1 in zero to achieve more stability, so it doesn't optimize during autotune. But most of the times I chose to optimize everything. Whether is that is the best for you it depens. Sometimes I manually set some parameters to more negative values to achieve more sensitivity.

You can try to save the batch with only those 4 parameters optimized, and then run an autotune in a different batch and see the difference. If it doesn't works, you have the previous autotune values to go back.

Regards,

Lisandro.

Hi Eleanor, 

Autotune is designed to optimize only the lens voltages. You can add/remove different lenses to be autotuned in Tools > Settings section > Tune > Select Lenses for Autotune (for an 8900 you will have more options than my photo).

The other hardware parameters (torch axis, QP settings. EM, etc) are optimized during the Plasma Start-Up. So it is important to run the start-up if you want these to be optimized. The only setting from Start Up that does not update in the batch is the lens tune since the start up does not utilize cell gas. 

The parameters in the batch the autotune will never optimize are the cell gas flow, axial acceleration, and energy discrimination. These are often manually adjusted by each user depending on their sample matrix/type of interference they wish to remove.

There are recommended starting tune parameters you will find in the Appendix of the Mass Hunter User Guide and also some useful tools like the Ramp Cell Gas tool that can aid with optimization, but we do leave it up to user discretion since it's very difficult to have a feature like autotune for these settings that can work for every customer and every interference.

Generally, the default settings work well for most customers but of course for more specialized matrices/applications they may need some additional optimization.