New Probe

Twas the day after the day after Christmas and all through the lab,
Justin's cheer could be heard and they were not drab.
Our new probe had arrived so shiny and bright,
too bad the flush gas valve was busted, out of sight.

Yosemite back up ...

Hello all,

This message is critical for West Campus NMR users (Malott users can probably ignore it) ....
As some of you may know, "Yosemite", the open access 400 MHz NMR in SBC 1004, has been unavailable since mid-November due to a fried motherboard on the workstation (computer) operating the instrument.  A new computer has been purchased, configured and deployed. Yosemite is now available for all trained users.  (See http://nmrlab.ku.edu/user-training if you need training for this instrument.)

Unfortunately, there are a few hoops to jump through.

#1) Log in with your username and password.  The password should be the exact same password you use on other instruments in the NMR lab and the old workstation for Yosemite.

WARNING – I had to enter all the passwords by hand, so it is possible that I typed your password incorrectly.  If you cannot get access to your account, please let me or Sarah know and we can check the password.

#2) When you log in for the first time you’ll see a pop-up window.  Click the “Ignore” button on the bottom left.  You’ll have to do this two or three times.

 

#3) Follow the normal checklist to acquire NMR data.  When you type “edc” be sure to enter YOUR USERNAME (the same one with which you logged onto the workstation) in the box that says USER. 

Attached is a PDF of these instructions with pictures.  Also see http://nmrlab.ku.edu/ - there is a link on the home page and in the Documents tab under Resources.  There is also a copy attached to the monitor of the new workstation.

Please see Sarah or myself if you have any questions regarding access.

Two more issues:

#1) Data access. 

The new workstation should be configured as a SAMBA server, allowing access to any computer with a KU IP address (or on the KU VPN).  See http://nmrlab.ku.edu/how-access-data for instructions.  I was able to synchronize the data drive between the new and old workstation, hence there should be zero data loss.  Nevertheless, this computer failure is an excellent opportunity for groups to review their data backup plans!

#2) SCC NMR access

Jeff Aube and his group were kind enough to offer access to the SCC 400 MHz NMR in SBC 1004 ("BigSur") while Yosemite was down.  Since Yosemite is now available, access to BigSur will now be limited to the group of Professor Aube.  I'll leave the temporary user accounts open for a couple of days as people transition back to Yosemite, but expect them gone by next week.

In conclusion, Sarah and I thank you for your patience and understanding while Yosemite was down.  Obviously, we'd hoped to have the instrument available sooner, but the configuration and data transfer steps were a bit more complicated than expected.

Let us know if you have any questions.

Justin

NMR Users,

This message is critical for West Campus NMR users (Malott users can probably ignore it) ....

As some of you have noticed and reported there have been errors on Yosemite (the open access 400 MHz NMR in SBC 1004).  The motherboard of the workstation (computer) operating this instrument is fried, meaning that we will have to purchase a new computer and configure it to work with the instrument.  This task will be a priority for us, but it will take time.  Fortunately, Jeff Aube has agreed to allow 1D 1H on his instrument ("BigSur2") which shares the room with Yosemite. 

SO - If you are a trained Yosemite user who needs access to BigSur2, there is mandatory training/account set up.  Rather than trying to make appointment I will be in SBC 1004 on Thursday 11/14 from 10-11:30 AM and 2:30-4 PM and Monday 11/18 from 10-11:30 AM and 2:30-4 PM.  I will meet with any trained Yosemite users, either individually or in small groups of 2-4.  I'll make accounts on BigSur for you and show you how to collect 1D 1Hs.  I'll also explain the access rules for non-CMLD/SCC users and encourage you to use our sample courier service to the cryoprobe in Malott for your 13C NMR.  It should take less than 15 minutes. 

The other major issue is access to old data.  I sent an email on listproc with detailed instructions regarding our work-around to get access to old data.  Contact me if you did not get that email or have questions.


In conclusion, Sarah and I appreciate your patience and understanding as we work through this issue.  Hopefully our work-around will suffice for the time being and not inconvenience you too much.

As always, let me know if you have questions, concerns or comments.

Justin

People may have notice that Paris, the walk up 500 MHz NMR in Malott B042, has been out of commission for a couple of days.  I have been working on the shims.  There were several problems.  First of all, the temperature of the sample in the probe was higher than room temperature even when the VT heater is off.  Setting all the shims to zero and letting the instrument sit overnight results in the temperature falling to 22 C.  Ah ha.  The shims, which are just electromagnets, are heating up the sample.  If you are wondering why the shims are producing so much heat, my only guess is that I (or more correctly, we) have slowly and steadily over many years configured our shims with too much current.  Since we can make lineshape (or at least get pretty close) I can only guess that we must be really lucky and able to compensate for one high order shim being too high with another high order shim.

At any rate, I set all the shims to zero and shimmed the magnet from scratch.  I also made an adjustment to the shim stack.  (There was a loose nut and we moved it a couple of years ago.  I was able to correct for this movement, but I wanted to make sure the nuts were tight and would not move again.  Mission accomplished!).  I have melted my brain shimming - fortunately I can get baseball gameday audio on my phone.  Shims look good.  Temperature looks good.  Temperature calibration looks good.  I just need to make new 2H shim maps and check pulse calibrations.  Instrument should be available to all tomorrow.

J 

New website

So the famous Novell network in Malott is now history and many servers are moving down to central IT.  The first causality for the NMR lab is our webserver!  I have mixed emotions about this change.  My website was in pretty sorry shape so I was excited to have a strong incentive to update it.  On the other hand, since my site will now live on KU servers, I am forced to conform to the dreaded "Content Management System", which (to my eye at least) looks cluttered and distracting.  Frankly, the major function of my website is communication with users, who (in general) are students or employees of the University of Kansas and do not care about brag points such as ....

One of 9 public universities with outstanding study abroad programs.
—U.S. News & World Report 


So why do I have to include them on my site?

At any rate, I was pleasantly surprised to learn how much flexibility developers have in CMS.  The training classes were useful and I progressed from a newbie to the author of a brand new website in a couple of hours.

The URL is

www.nmrlab.ku.edu

Let me repeat that for the google robots

www.nmrlab.ku.edu
www.nmrlab.ku.edu
www.nmrlab.ku.edu
www.nmrlab.ku.edu
www.nmrlab.ku.edu

(If you googled "KU NMR lab" my site used to be the first on to pop up.  Now I am nowhere to be seen, a fact that irritates me to no end!).

At any rate, there is a lot of content on this site, which is focused at users of my lab, but anyone should be able to access.  Some of the content is good, some is bad, some is irrelevant.  I'm going to try to work on upgrading it and adding EPR content, too.  Clearly the major purpose of this blog post is to get my new URL out there.

Later,

Justin

Hello,

The annual maintenance for cryoprobe on "Siena" (500 in Malott B042) is now complete and the instrument is ready to acquire data on any and all samples!  For anyone who submitted samples since last Friday, we will work through your samples in the order received.  Fortunately, there is not too much of a backlog. 

Thank you for your patience,

Justin

NMR Users,

Our cryoprobe (special high sensitivity probe on "Siena", the 500 in Malott B042) requires maintenance every 10,000 hours to replace various parts, etc.  This service is scheduled for Tuesday, September 3rd, which is the day after Labor day.  The probe must be warm when the engineer arrives, so I will schedule a warmup sometime during the Labor day weekend (Aug. 31-Sept. 2).  Sarah and I will try to get through as many samples as we can, but I have to warm up on Labor Day at the latest.  The Bruker engineer and I will be working on the instrument for most of the rest of that week and it will not be available for any experiments during that time.  Once the probe is cooled and ready to run I will send an email on the listproc.  You can continue to submit samples and Sarah and I will queue them once the instrument is available.

Thank you for your patience.

Justin 

Many congratulations to Dr. Todd Williams for winning 2013 KU Research Achievement Award.  Todd is the director of the Mass Spectrometry and Applied Proteomics core labs and a long-time friend and mentor to the KU NMR lab.  He is a great scientist and a great guy and we are really happy for him.

http://www.chem.ku.edu/dr-todd-williams-receives-2013-ku-research-achievement-award