HPLC: Deuterium Lamps Warning

David A. Schooley (schooley@unr.edu)
Mon, 26 Jan 1998 15:29:34 -0800


There have been a number of postings in the past about alternative
sources of deuterium lamps. Here is one of the most comprehensive:
From: "Terry Mulcahy (505)277-5792; Fax: 277-5389" <TMULCAHY@medusa.unm.edu>
Subject: Re: lamps
There are four that I know of: Sonntek, Inc., PO Box 8589, Woodcliff Lake,
NJ 07675 (201-666-6737)
The Second Source, PO Box 7787, La Verne, CA 91750-9933 (800-776-3924)
Hellma, Box 544, Borough Hall Station, Jamaica, NY 11424 (718-544-9534)
PSC Lamps, Inc., 1 Fishers Road, Pittsford, NY 14534-9511 (800-772-5267) -

We have had earlier dealings with Sonntek- got a lamp there for a
Perkin-Elmer 410 BIO whose pixel energy was not much better than the lamp
we had in there with over 2,000 hours on it.
We recently needed a new lamp for the "Linear instruments" detector
in our Michrom and bought one from the Second Source, as they are the
closest to us and we wanted to save a few bucks. The lamp came in
promptly, and lasted 2 days and then would not fire. We swapped lamps
with a Spectra Physics spectra Chrom 100 detector (= Linear instruments),
and the bulb worked OK in the spectra-Physics. Also, the Spectra-Physics
lamp with a lot of hours on it worked fine in the Michrom.
On discussion of this problem with Mike Medley of Michrom, he told
me they used to buy from Second Source but had the same problem- some
lamps would work in one detector and not in another, identical detector.
Caveat emptor!

David

David A. Schooley
Dept. of Biochemistry/330
Univ. of Nevada
Reno, NV 89557
schooley@med.unr.edu
tel: (702) 784-4136; fax (702) 784-1419