FACSCalibur -- sheath filter replaced

This morning when I came in, the FACSCalibur was on in Run-High mode, though the sheath fluid had long since run out. The user from yesterday had left it on like this all night. I tried to get it running again, but couldn't get anything to flow through the sheath filter. I called instrument support and they confirmed that the sheath filter was no longer useable and had to be replaced. Luckily, I had just ordered and received a spare sheath filter last week, so I used that one. I also changed the waste tank cap to the unbreakable type. With the new sheath filter, I was able to get the system running again, ran FACSComp, and it passed. We're up and running again. Hopefully, this won't happen again.

Zeiss -- Stereo Investigator 8 is installed

MicroBrightfield was willing to let us have version 8 of Stereo Investigator now because of all the problems we've been having with corrupted files. They also know that I've been frustrated with several bugs in version 7.5 that apparently have been fixed in 8. Sure enough, everything seems to be much better now. I'm very happy with the icon customization that we can do now, and my work has been going very smoothly.

Zeiss -- Our new X-Cite illuminator is here

Our X-Cite illuminator arrived and was installed by our rep yesterday. We let it sit on for two hours to "burn in" the new bulb or something like that (instructions from Sam, our rep). It works the same as ours, and we can expect to get about 2000 hours out of it before having to change the bulb.

One thing he mentioned is that we should try to close the iris any time we're not using the light, because it will allow the "liquid light cable" to last much longer. He explained that the head of the mercury vapor illumination gradually wears on the cable and that simple step can extend the life of the cable by years.

Zeiss (Stereo Investigator) -- Doing much better

We had been having greatly increased crashes and errors from around the first of the year til around the 8th of January. That evening, Christine was having such severe problems with Stereo Investigator that she couldn't continue any productive work. I came in that night for troubleshooting, and was unable to resolve the problems after many attempts. However, I did update the software from version 7.53.2 to 7.53.3. We read the release notes, and there was no indication that any of the errors Christine, Kevin, or I had been having would be resolved, but figured it probably couldn't hurt. I also showed Christine how to run the Optical Fractionator Probe without the workflow (the old-fashioned way, as I call it). This worked, while the workflow crashed every time she attempted to begin counting (and also lost her parameters every time).

Well, both Kevin and I noticed reduced crashes and errors since then (I haven't been having any at all, knock on wood). I called MBF the next day and they requested a copy of the file that was causing crashes. I sent it, and they "fixed" it and sent it back. However, the "fixed" version was an .asc file, and both Christine and I opened the .dat file, which was really the original, buggy file. Since then, Christine has completed that monkey using the old fashioned method and moved on to the rest of her work, so we haven't tested the "fixed" file.

They also told us that version 8 of Stereo Investigator will be released soon, and should fix all the bugs we've been having, and also should have many new useful features. They won't reveal the release date, however. Let me know if you have any questions about this.

Zeiss -- Stereo Investigator is crashing

Users have been having numerous Stereo Investigator crashes lately, and we don't yet know the reason. I personally have been experiencing frequent Ludl stage errors, but it has not really impeded my work much. Two users who are doing Optical Fractionators have been struggling to get anything done. Tonight, I came to check it out and found that using the Optical Fractionator without the workflow appeared to work, and that starting a new file from my own account (rather than the user's account) worked alright, but we couldn't get the workflow to not crash when she was logged in and using her data file. I'll call MBF tomorrow to see if they have any insight.