Dear Colleagues,

this is an interesting post and one that has brought home to me recently
just how lucky we are in the developed world by recent developments of links
between my lab and another in Eastern Europe. Many countries in eastern
Europe, and the developing world are struggling to maintain a research base
using old equipment, much of it dating from the 60's. Often the only spare
parts that are available are those that can be scavenged off disused
instruments from the west.

I suspect that there are several labs who would be interested in donations
of old instruments with a view to using the vacuum components, ion sources,
collector assemblies etc. in order to keep their existing instruments
running. Maybe even the electronics would still be useful. I for one am
still using HV and source supplies dating from the 70's on one of my
machines! Perhaps labs with any equipment that they are thinking of
disposing of could post a notice on isogeochem announcing that they have a
model xxxxxx mass spec. for disposal. Obviously, given the state of eastern
european economies, the parts would have to be donated.

Any other ideas?

Paul



I suggest that
-----Original Message-----
From: Siep Talma <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, July 22, 1998 2:40 PM
Subject: Unused mass spectrometers?


>Dear Isogeochemists
>
>I would be interested in views or experiences on what one can do with
>old, outdated mass spectrometers.
>
>We have a MAT/Varian/Finnegan M86 and two Varian/Finnegan GD 150
>instruments (vintage late 1960's) that were taken out of action more
>than a decade ago. The electronics will not be much good, I suppose,
>but the vacuum parts, ion source and gas handling side should still be
>in working condition. It seems a shame to turn them into scrap, but
>locally nobody is interested in building them up into anything useful.
>
>Any ideas?
>
>Siep Talma
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>AS TALMA
>Environmentek-CSIR
>PO Box 395
>0001 PRETORIA   South Africa
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