Preventative care is critical to the life and utility of your instrument. We recognize that unattended, lingering problems decrease instrument performance and can lead to unnecessary service bills not planned in your budget. That’s why our highest-valued service plans include planned maintenance, where we proactively approach our customers to schedule preventative care service calls and routine inspection.

To help keep your Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, and Ion Torrent instruments in peak condition and available when you need them, we recommend scheduled maintenance at least once per year. Planned maintenance visits are intended to help you avoid unnecessary downtime, reduce strain on your laboratory staff, and substantially extend the life of your instruments. We offer planned maintenance on our capillary electrophoresis, real-time qPCR, and thermal cycler instruments.

Planned Maintenance for capillary electrophoresis includes:

Data verification

 

  • System information
  • Data collection computer—hardware information
  • Connected peripherals
  • Applied Biosystems Analysis Software—version information

Maintenance operations:

  • Computer maintenance
  • General maintenance
    • Analog-to-digital converter (ADC) tests
    • Oven heater
    • Laser
    • Electrophoresis (EP) voltage
    • Charged-coupled device (CCD) temperature
  • Optics performance tests
    • Upper and lower beam verified and adjusted (if needed)
    • CCD position verified
      • Grating rotation
      • CCD rotation
      • Array vertical centering
      • Laser beam separation
      • Start wavelength
  • Polymer delivery pump/block maintenance

 

Planned Maintenance for real-time qPCR instruments includes:

Data verification

  • System maintenance
  • Computer settings

Maintenance operations

  • System verification
  • Optics maintenance
  • Filter wheel calibration
  • Heated cover alignment
  • Charged-coupled device (CCD) camera alignment
  • Thermal cycler maintenance
  • Heating and cooling test
  • Cycle rate test
  • Block temperature accuracy
  • Temperature non-uniformity (TNU) test
  • Calibrations
  • Region of interest (ROI) calibration
  • Block contamination check
  • Optical calibration
  • Pure dye calibration (PDC)

Completion and Recommendations

  • Post–planned maintenance recommendations

Planned Maintenance for thermal cyclers—typical planned maintenance for a Veriti Thermal Cycler includes:

Data verification

  • System information
    • Gather and document customer concerns
    • Verification of instrument at latest engineering change order (ECO) level
    • Diagnostics check on start-up

Maintenance operations

  • General
    • Environment verification
    • Inspect operation and clean (if necessary)
      • Fan
      • Cover and sample blocks
      • Outlet ducts
      • Display
    • Perform temperature verification
  • Instrument diagnostics checks
    • Run history log file
    • LCD button response
    • USB port
    • Cycle performance test
    • o Heated cover verification test
    • o Temperature non-uniformity test
  • Completion
    • Post–planned maintenance recommendations
Capillary Electrophoresis

Planned Maintenance for capillary electrophoresis includes:

Data verification

 

  • System information
  • Data collection computer—hardware information
  • Connected peripherals
  • Applied Biosystems Analysis Software—version information

Maintenance operations:

  • Computer maintenance
  • General maintenance
    • Analog-to-digital converter (ADC) tests
    • Oven heater
    • Laser
    • Electrophoresis (EP) voltage
    • Charged-coupled device (CCD) temperature
  • Optics performance tests
    • Upper and lower beam verified and adjusted (if needed)
    • CCD position verified
      • Grating rotation
      • CCD rotation
      • Array vertical centering
      • Laser beam separation
      • Start wavelength
  • Polymer delivery pump/block maintenance

 
Real-Time qPCR instruments

Planned Maintenance for real-time qPCR instruments includes:

Data verification

  • System maintenance
  • Computer settings

Maintenance operations

  • System verification
  • Optics maintenance
  • Filter wheel calibration
  • Heated cover alignment
  • Charged-coupled device (CCD) camera alignment
  • Thermal cycler maintenance
  • Heating and cooling test
  • Cycle rate test
  • Block temperature accuracy
  • Temperature non-uniformity (TNU) test
  • Calibrations
  • Region of interest (ROI) calibration
  • Block contamination check
  • Optical calibration
  • Pure dye calibration (PDC)

Completion and Recommendations

  • Post–planned maintenance recommendations

Thermal Cyclers

Planned Maintenance for thermal cyclers—typical planned maintenance for a Veriti Thermal Cycler includes:

Data verification

  • System information
    • Gather and document customer concerns
    • Verification of instrument at latest engineering change order (ECO) level
    • Diagnostics check on start-up

Maintenance operations

  • General
    • Environment verification
    • Inspect operation and clean (if necessary)
      • Fan
      • Cover and sample blocks
      • Outlet ducts
      • Display
    • Perform temperature verification
  • Instrument diagnostics checks
    • Run history log file
    • LCD button response
    • USB port
    • Cycle performance test
    • o Heated cover verification test
    • o Temperature non-uniformity test
  • Completion
    • Post–planned maintenance recommendations

Complete List of Instruments Serviced

Planned Maintenance is available for our Research Use Only (RUO) labeled instruments, and our diagnostic (IVD) labeled instruments.