I've read all the comments to John Spencer about purchasing a Hitachi. How about some comments for the Agilent 1100 with PDA detection?

We have an Agilent 1100 that is about a year
old. It does not run nearly as well as the
1090s did. So far, every section of the
instrument except for the column heating
compartment has broken down. The DAD
developed problems the day after it was
installed. I have also found phone support to
be very poor. The technicians generally have
less knowledge about HPLC than I do, and if
the answer doesn't come up on the software,
they can't provide any ideas. I have spoken to
people in other labs who have had the same
problems.

I've had an 1100 for about 2 years now. Although it generally worked well. I have had some serious problems with carry over which haven't been corrected yet. Don't be fooled by the salesman. They'll yes you to death and then you find out that it doesnt work the way you wanted it to.

I've had an 1100 for 3 years now and i hadn't have any big problem with that (only the normal manteinance). We only made analytical development and not quality control.

Now I'he bought an HPLC/MSD 1100 and I hope every thing is going to work as fine as the first.

Thay have improved the PDA cell to control the temperature and not to have problems with the drift of background line with the temperature.

I've worked with Waters systems but not with Hitachi. If I've to choose I will select a 1100

We have had an 1100 for about 3 years. Only serious hardware problem so far has been an intermittant power supply failure caused, I believe, when a voltage spike damaged it. Turned out to be very difficult to diagnose and HP service was great. Some problems with short UV lamp life early on, but HP's long life lamp solved that. Chemstation software does do some funky things once in a while, for example, injections will sometimes be missing from a batch file, but they can be restored by reprocessing the run.

Kendra - We noticed carryover when our system was first run through the OQ/PV routine. Turned out to be caused by the septa on our vials. We normally use 10 mil TFE septa, however, for the 1100 we found we needed to use TFE faced silicone septa. TFE septa are hard and do not reseal when pierced. The TFE faced silicone septa are soft and conform to the needle, wiping it as it is withdrawn from the vial. No problems since the switch.

Best Regards,

Michael Hinsberg
http://www.hinsbarlabs.com

I have thirteen 1100 in my labs (ranging from 4 years to brand new) and one more under order. Some of them are running almost 24h/24 7d/7.
We had very few problems and service in France is very good (I know it is not the same everywhere).
We have not a lot of experience with the DAD, the only one we have is included in a LC/MS system and we usually focus on the mass signals; seems to work well also.

We have one HP1100 in our lab (degasser, binary pump, injector, oven, DAD) since 1996. In general I think its a very good and consistent system, the only problem we had from time to time is a "movement failure" of the injector, but this was overcome with a firmware upgrade provided by HP.
Very Good OQ/PV functions for supervising the machine.

Our lab has two 1100s with DADs (as well as two 1050s with VWDs). They have been very reliable, most repairs done by us, and any service has been great. 3 pass yearly OQ/PV for cGMP after only routine preventive maintenance such as replacing the piston seals and the autosampler rotor seal, sometimes a needle seat. As to software, I'm not a computer guy and I don't have any problems, but I've never used competition's chromatography software. Our QC labs also use Agilent because of high uptime.

Dear all,

We have a very serious carry-over problem in our HP1100 as well (especially it is connected to the triple quad and I could see the compound in all my blanks (even just infusing the system with pure acetonitrile, methano, etc.) I have tried everything. Aside from Hinsbarlab's suggestion, please advise if there is any other things that I could do. Thank you very much.

The HP1100 autosampler can be set up to wash the needle in a wash vial. You can also set up an injector program to execute any number of wash steps. These are detailed in the injctor manual. Unlike most auto samplers, the HP1100s needle and metering piston is switched into the high pressure flow path and is cotinuously swept with mobile phase. We also use PTFE faced silicone septa and rarely see any carryover. If the cause is the exterior of the needle a wash vial should help, otherwise I would troubleshoot the system. Perhaps the vent line is plugged and pressurizing or is not routed correctly. You might want to change/check the injector rotor. We have ten systems and have no carryover problems.

Tom, the problem with our system is that we are controlling the autosampler via the Mass-Spec computer program, not the ChemStation. They would not allow us to execute our desired number of wash or the volume for washing. Thank you for your comment, I would check the injector rotor.