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Equipment log for the JEOL JBX-9300FS EBL System
| 2009-9-30 | The EBL system is still down. JEOLs attempts to fix the astigmatism drift problem last week were unsuccessful. A different engineer will be arriving tomorrow from California who has more experience with JBX EBL systems. Hopefully they can get to the root cause of the problem this week. The system is likely to remain down the rest of this week.
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| 2009-9-28 | The EBL system is still down. JEOLs attempts to fix the astigmatism drift problem last week were unsuccessful. A different engineer will be arriving tomorrow from California who has more experience with JBX EBL systems. Hopefully they can get to the root cause of the problem this week. The system is likely to remain down the rest of this week.
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| 2009-9-1 | The 9300FS will be down starting at 1PM today. The extraction current has drifted and the beam current is not stable. JEOL engineering is going to adjust the filament current and it will take overnight for the gun to stabilize. Tomorrow morning JEOL will check the gun stability and evaluate whether or not any more adjustments are needed. An email will be sent out at that time as to whether the machine will be back up or if it will take more adjustments. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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| 2009-6-5 | The JEOL JBX-9300FS EBL System has been marked down by Devin Brown for the following reason:
Autoloader position error. Have called JEOL service engineering and discussed problem by phone. Will work on problem by Monday morning at the latest, possibly sooner.
Please contact staff if you have any questions. |
| 2009-6-24 | There was a problem with the autoloader last night. This is the same problem that occurred at the beginning of the month of June. We are having a problem with the sensor that senses the home position of the loading rod. The loading rod is not something that you as a user normally can see. Without going into a lot of detail and making this a very long email, the succinct summary is that we can recover from this error but we still do not know the exact root cause. We are working with JEOL engineering to permanently fix this problem.
In the meantime, the tool is up and is ready for use.
It is possible that the error could come back at anytime. If it does, there is no risk to your sample, and it usually occurs when unloading the cassette. You will hear an alarm at the console, and two red buttons labeled "Vac alarm" and "Buzzer stop" will be illuminated. If this happens, you can silence the alarm by pressing "Buzzer stop". At that point give me a call. Whenever we re-set this problem, it seems to stay fixed for several weeks. So I do not think it will fail again anytime soon. In the meantime, we are trying to find a permanent fix.
Thanks for your patience. |
| 2009-6-23 | Problem with the autoloader. |
| 2009-4-16 | The preventative maintenance on the JBX-9300FS has been completed. The system is now back up for use. Thank you for your patience. Below is a brief summary of why the machine was down and the maintenance that was completed. Several test exposures were performed and analyzed and the system is meeting specifications.
- 100kV electron gun replacement
- replaced ion pump 4
- replaced dry scroll pumps
- replaced objective aperture
- cleaned column between objective lens and lens 2
- cleaned out entire autoloader inside
- fixed small leak on autoloader to chamber valve
- replaced back up battery for main chamber turbo pump
- replaced water chiller unit filter
- replaced faulty temperature monitor sensor
- greased and cleaned X & Y stage motor lead screws
- replaced X & Y motor power and control cables with new low noise retrofit cables
- backed up entire unix workstation (including all user files and even OS)
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| 2009-10-5 | The problem with the y astigmatism drift was isolated to a bad solder connection in the dynamic astigmatism correction amplifier. The connector has been repaired and the system has been tested several times. The y stig is now stable. It was a difficult problem to find because tests gave conflicting results which made the problem hard to isolate. The system has been marked up and you may now use the tool. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
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| 2009-10-26 | Yutaka Oki from JEOL USA in Boston is flying down today to assist with the problem on the EBL system. It is possible one power supply external to the high voltage tank could be to blame for the problem. We are waiting for an answer from JEOL in Japan, which we should receive late tonight. If that power supply is not to blame, then the plan is to open the high voltage tank tomorrow and troubleshoot the internal electronics. Today, preparations have been made, and are being made, to open the high voltage tank containing SF6. Thank you for your patience.
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| 2009-10-22 | The 9300 is down because the filament current is zero and there is no beam emission. This was discovered on Wednesday morning, 10/21. In addition the first and second anode are not operating at their correct voltage. Normally they are 4 and 6 kV, while presently they are much less than 1 kV.
JEOL service engineering is on site and has been working on the problem since yesterday. The high voltage cable was disconnected and the filament resistance was measured externally through the cable. The resistance of the filament was low and in specification and was not high or open. So the filament is believed to be in good condition.
Both the filament control signal and A1/A2 control signals share a common electronic board inside the high voltage tank which is currently believed to be the cause of the problem. (The high voltage tank is the big square box in the back of the column room.) The signals controlling the filament and A1/A2 electrodes were good going into the high voltage tank, but were bad coming out of the high voltage tank.
We are waiting for a response from the factory in Japan as to what to do next. The high voltage tank is pressurized with SF6 and is a very heavy steel tank. It will be very time consuming to proceed with opening the tank combined with the fact that the room is very crowded. So we are waiting on advice from JEOL in Japan as to any other thing that can be checked before proceeding.
Thanks for your patience, and sorry that we have another problem so soon after the last one.
Please see attached for a diagram showing where the filament, A1/A2 electrode, and high voltage tank are located.
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| 2009-10-21 | JEOL JBX-9300FS EBL System Marked Down
Inbox X
Reply
Users,
The JEOL JBX-9300FS EBL System has been marked down by Devin Brown for the following reason:
Filament current is zero. The emitter is dead. JEOL Field Service Engineering has been called and will be in shortly to look at the system.
Please contact staff if you have any questions.
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| 2009-10-1 | The EBL system is still down. JEOLs attempts to fix the astigmatism drift
problem last week were unsuccessful. A different engineer will be
arriving tomorrow from California who has more experience with JBX EBL
systems. Hopefully they can get to the root cause of the problem this
week. The system is likely to remain down the rest of this week.
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