Help! LS head has water in jacket

I placed my head in the sonicator, and then I left it to dry on a drying rack. I noticed in the morning that the vacuum jacket around the column had water in it! There has to be a leak somewhere but I can’t find it. Also, the water isn’t coming out.

Does anyone know how this could have happened? What should I do? If it’s just in the jacket part but I can still pull vacuum, do you think the head is safe to use for a run?

Thanks!

4 Likes

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your vacuum chamber has a leak. If you’re able to pull vacuum, it won’t be stable.

Unfortunately, sonicating glass often has this outcome. I’ve seen similar issues working with bio-reactor vessels that were glass—they build up micro fractures until they become noticeable.

I’d try and work something out with the manufacturer and say ‘hey, this shit broke using one of the most common lab equipment cleaning methods—gimmie another one’

6 Likes

I would place iT in a vacuum chamber and pull a vac not to hard and place in a diffrent angel till the water shows the seizure
Pull it all out then bring to a glas blower
Heat the jacket and then melt the hole Shut might be Saved that way😢

Aw man :frowning: I figured it might be toast. I’ll call lab society… I thought the sonicator was fine on quality glass. I have used a sonicator for years in my research lab on a variety of glassware and never had an issue, that’s why this is surprising to me.

Do you guys have any recommendations for how to prevent this from happening moving forward? I’d like to clean via sonicator so I don’t need to worry about breaking the glass when handling it, but if this is an inevitable outcome then I’ll need to find a different way of cleaning.

This should be a straightforward repair any competent scientific glassblower can fix. It’s not quite as simple as finding the hole and fusing it shut, as the jacket has to be evacuated in advance. There are nifty electric discharge tools to localize the hole during this process. If there aren’t any glass shops in your area, you could send it to Adams and Chittenden Scientific Glass in Berkeley.

2 Likes

Thanks. I contacted a local shop in Boulder so I’ll see what they say. Hoping I can do it locally, but if that doesn’t work out I’ll definitely check out the Berkeley shop!

Lab Society is based out of Colorado, shouldn’t they be able to help you? Seems like they are pretty good about their service and would properly resolve an issue like this

5 Likes

I believe Lab Society is on a company retreat until next week.

3 Likes

I bought it from craigslist so I’m not sure they’ll support it… I do have the original receipt though. I’ll give them a call when their entire company comes back from vacation lol (@raghanded is right, they’re off for a week).

2 Likes

if it has there name on it…they should support you. If someone bought a piece of my equipment 2nd hand and needs help. Its no problem. My name is on it. I stand by my name no matter who has it. Its my name. We live in an ebay society and people buy stuff undisclosed.

Personally for what they charge for stuff. This should be a given with lifetime manufacturers defect warranty. Just my opinion. As a business, you write this shit off at the end of the year. Believe me, they need write offs with those margins.

7 Likes

Thanks for the input @Killa12345, I’ll push for lab society to fix it or replace. I wouldn’t have bought LS if it wasn’t for the craigslist deal, I think they’re extremely overpriced.

3 Likes

It could possibly be repaired. To know for sure you’ll have to figure out whether the leak is from a vigreux (inside) or from the jacketing on the outside. The jacketing is an easy fix but the vigreux is not repairable.

3 Likes

There newer heads are way faster tbh. And sonicator shouldnt be used on any welded glass. Its fine for little beakers, syringes, etc

Just got word back from a scientific glass repair shop that it is indeed the Vigreux and cannot be fixed.

@LabSociety is there anything you can do to help this situation? A $500 head should NOT fail like this, I literally only got 3 runs out of this!

2 Likes

Hey there!

Give us a call @ 720-600-2037 x. 701 or email help@labsociety.com with the issue!

Cheers,
LS

3 Likes

@LabSociety I have already been in contact but haven’t made much progress. I’ll try again, hoping I can report back positive news.

4 Likes

Unfortunately, they can’t do anything about my situation because I bought it from someone else (even though it was brand new in the packaging with receipt and never used).

They offered me 15% off a new head, which is laughable.

I’m currently building my 12L system, and @LabSociety is going to be missing out on my business for that project and everything I do in the future (including my consulting client who was going to buy a puriflash chromatography Unit though them).

I only got three runs out of this head; I can’t recommend LS to anyone based on my experience.

4 Likes