I love the Agilent 6890. My prior chemistry company exclusively used these Agilent GC’s (all were refurbished). They were almost never down. We used hydrogen generators. I don’t recall the model. I’ve seen some for sale at decent prices at fire sales for pharma startups that have gone bust (Bay area). These are great opportunities to pick up instruments and accessories, some still under service warranties.
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Just give SRI a call weekly. They have used refurbished units for sale quite often. It may be a few $$ more than ebay or the like, but 8m sure buying direct would get you some free help.
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a little late here but my answer to variability was to get a scale accurate to .0001 milligrams. Love me some auctions 
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any idea if a TCD or FPD is useful at all for cannabis testing? maybe the TCD would help pick up residual solvents? could the FPD pickup any sulfur based pesticides or foliars?
We are considering a purchase of one of these SRI 420 GC units (the small one). I have been reading through the (very informative) replies here, but I am not always clear whether we are talking about the model 420, or other SRI units, such as the 8310 in many cases.
I am hoping to get feedback clarification from those who actually have used the smaller model 420 regarding their performance and reliability. If we purchase one, we will only be using it to perform its advertised potency function, and plan to use the internal standard.
We are in a potential no confidence situation with our testing lab and would like some type of in house confirmation (even if there is a known bias such as 8%). Our lab currently retested a sample we were concerned with and came up with a result that was 18% different than their initial analysis of the same sample. This was only a potency test. I am hoping to post this situation soon, as I sure could use some feedback…
Cheers - gl
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the 420 will not make you happy. a used 8610C is a better machine and should be available for about the same $5500. I have access to both. the 8610c is rock solid. the 420 is whimsical at best.
eg https://www.ebay.com/itm/SRI-Instruments-8610C-Gas-Chromatograph-NICE-/303120104022
I’ve used this seller on more than one occasion.
You could probably get the right column for $400 & a heated injector port upgrade from SRI for ~$2k installed (~$1k if you do it yourself Heated Flash Vaporization Injector)
it also doesn’t have the 12 bay sample oven their cannabis specific 8610c has, but a small water bath held at 55C will serve that purpose.
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Thanks for the feedback!
Or acetone.
I work at SRI Instruments. You might be interested in the newest Model 310 GC:
srigc .com
model-310-medical-marijuana-gc-system
Summer
SRI
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or yeah, as @SummerSRI suggests, split the difference and get their 310.
Both @SummerSRI and her dad Hugh tried to talk me out of the 420 
I had a fair idea what I was getting into.
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Are there any compatible autosamplers for the 8610c?
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We shelled out for a 310. Haven’t put it though it’s paces yet as we’re still waiting for the electrician to finish wiring the r&d machine up, but will post here with our experiences once we have them.
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Let me know if you would like to go through the step by step set up process through a phone call.
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The 310 may be of interest to you. Call and ask for Summer, message me for contact info, or speak with Hugh and mention Summer referenced you through Future 4200.
Any machine without an autosampler is a waste of time if you ask me.
Yes. The Cobra Autosampler.
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The 310? Yes. The most popular cannabis Potency Testing model. The 310gc has a newer feature on the GC: the “derivatizer”. It makes the process for testing raw acid forms (THCa, CBGa, CBDa, etc.), simplified.
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No. Just asked the boss. We sell a Cobra Autosampler as of now.