We've just purchased some Agilent 1100 series HPLC systems. The problem is that the stacks are very high and I can't reach to change the mobile phases without endangering myself, as I'm not very tall. I have to ask taller colleagues to help me and needless to say they poke fun at me and even make cruel suggestions such as that my short physical stature is the reason why I've never been married even though I'm 43!
Jim

I guess you could move that thingie that holds the bottles (don't know what Agilent's term is for it), off to the side, on top of a small wooden crate or something on the bench. Or you could get a nice, sturdy step-stool. It is best if the bottles are above the level of the pump.

Thanks for that but what about the wife thing?
Jim

The safety officer just caught me standing on the bench with a bottle of acetonitrile in one hand and 20 mM phosphate buffer pH 2.5 in the other. I'm in trouble now! Couldn't Agilent make more shorty friendly systems?
Jim

Maybe labs could make lower benches.

Split the stack. Solvent compartment on degasser on pump over to sampler on column compartment on detector.

Steve

Split the stack, we have two split stack systems here. Purchase a stepstool. Purchase the 2-liter reservoir bottles which have the delivery line screwed into the side, to make for easier solvent addition through the top. Agilent and others make stackable stuff to economize bench space, not to persucute shorter employees; with our 1100 with RID and DAD, it would take a 7-footer to avoid use of a stepstool. Stepstools can be very valuable, and are cheap. As to wife, women can be as superficial as men; really, why should the length of your leg bones really be that important to a woman???

There is a girl in the lab who is even shorter than me. She doesn't seem to have a problem with the height of the Agilent systems - but I think she used to be a trapeze artist in the circus before being lured away by the glamour of chromatography, and I think she may have some balancing trick to get to the top?. I asked her to marry me but she said she was trying to breed out the shortness genes.
Jim

Hey, Jim, we had a 61 inch gal here (good-looking)a decade ago that said the same thing, then two years later married a guy her size who really looked like a mouse, really, so hang in there. Next time she's on the ladder filling the reservoirs get a good view.

Jim !!!!

I imagine you walking around with a bottle of pH : 2,5 phosphate buffer and asking the girls to marry you . Get over it mate !! I mean your shorty/longy problems. I haven't read anything funny like your messages on this page.So, thanx !!

For better results, should Jim be carrying a bottle containing a different solvent? Might help him resolve his problem.....couldn't resist.

Actually things are looking up. The girl who works in the GC lab next door has expressed an interest in getting to know about HPLC - this could be the start of something good. I'm just worried that she may be used to longer columns!?
Jim

Hey bingo! I was running through in detail how to chromatograph,on HPLC, a series of compounds when I suddenly got the nerve to ask the GC girl to go to go on a date with me. She said yes! How ironic that we'd just 'gone through a separation' before going out together!
Jim

Maybe you're both just going through a phase...

I hope your column isn't plugged, and that you've got plenty of mobile phase....(maybe I've got a career here)...

Comic Chemist,

Don't quit your day job.

Does anyone know of any good movies which have a chromatography theme? I know there can't be many, otherwise LC/GC would have a regular movie review section. I did see one which looked promising some years back. The poster said it was an Oscar nominated movie about coing to terms with a difficult separation. I imagined it might be about the separation of primary amines - the bane of every chromatographers existance at the time. So, I got all my chromatography pals from the chromatographic society and we went along. Imagine how I felt when Kramer vs Kramer proved to have no chromatography content whatsoever. I was the butt of many a joke from the society members I don't mind telling you- one even suggesting that Dustin Hoffman would be ideal to play me if 'the life of Jim' was ever made into a movie - if he wasn't so tall!!
Jim

And before anyone suggests it - No! Danny DeVito would not be the ideal actor to play me - because he doesn't have ginger hair for a start!!
Jim

I suppose, although not strictly a movie more of a TV series, Quincy did do the odd bit of chromatography. He usually didn't use any calibrants or seem to adhere to any quality system though. I suppose he didn't have time as he also did autopsies, chased the bad guys, caught them, brought them to court himself and got them convicted. Try doing all that in an hour while maintaining GLP compliance! By the time he'd have drafted the study protocol the credits would have been rolling.
Jim

This whole thing reminds me a little of "Love Potion No. 9". When the guy says that he's a biochemist, all the gals turn away ...
But Sandra Bullock turns out to be really a hit anyway. :-)
Anybody know that movie?
Wolf

Medicine Man!!

I'm more of a chemist than a biochemist. I do analyse the odd protein and did have a go at CZE at one stage. We forked 60,000 quid for that - most expensive battery we ever purchased. We sit it next to the HPLCs just to let it feel inferior. Anyone wanna buy it from us?
Jim

Before this thread goes to far into the realms of a dating chatroom ;o)...

As was mentioned earlier on the in thread, you can split the stack. If you look in the manuals for the 1100s, or check the Agilent website, there are details of what the best configuration is if you do split the stack.