Vial pickup on Tray on 7683 autosampler frozen

Question

Hi everyone 
 The vial pickup on our autosampler tray arm stopped working during the course of a series of injections and appears to be locked. The arm still rotates but the pickup is locked. 
 We have tried the obvious - switch it on and off but without resolution 
 Any suggestions. I think that we had this problem many years ago and there was a solution but I can't remember what it was 
 
 Thanks in advance 
 Kevin

CMZainea · Answer

Hello soccerdad , 
 I know this is an older post and probably resolved, if you do have the solution for your case, please feel free to post it here. 
 garyb007 , I see you have a similar problem as well. 
 
 When the arm is locking up, you mean it does not move up and down at all, or it moves down, and locks? Are there any fault lights thrown by the tray? Any errors in the Software? 
 Some suggestions: 
 
 - The first thing I would check are physical obstructions in the arm path, and maybe try to do some maintenance following the 7683 manual (see chapter 8). 
 - Check if something was recently changed in the configuration of the tray (see page 90 in the manual above, on how you would configure that on a 6890 for example). May or may not be useful, depending on the symptom. 
 
 Otherwise, it could simply be a mechanism problem, and the only solution would be to change the mechanism, if you can find the parts and instructions on how to open that. Otherwise, you will need to contact Agilent Technical Support .

70 eV · Answer

If the up and down won't freely move through the full range of motion and locks up at a certain point the arm is toast. You can order a replacement arm (G2614-60531). If you have the budget I would recommend buying a newer ALS. 
 If you want to take it apart and tinker with it remove all the trays and look underneath the arm, there's a Phillips head screw on each end. Take care not to move the rods the arm rides on from the position they were in after disassembly.