Akta Prime

From: Michael Colaner
Date: 12 October 2011 19:28


Dear all,

We have an AktaPrime and GE Lifesciences stop servicing these instruments because they are getting old.  Does anyone know of a third party company that gives contracts to maintain these instruments?  Thank you.

Mike Colaneri

----------
From: Chun Luo

It's not difficult to replace parts of AKTAprime. But the pump may not be available anymore. It should be cheaper to get a new AKTAprime plus than getting a service contract for AKTAprime. AKTAprime plus costs just a little bit over $10,000 for a new one and lasts at least 5 years without a service call. GE probably will support AKTAprime plus for a few more years. --Chun

----------
From: Jan Gebauer

Dear Mike,

strange - I just filed a repair job with labcrew for our old ÄKTA Prime. A technician was in house (for other reasons) when it stopped working and he was confident that he can replace our pump (rotary unit, as he called it)... Well let's hope he really does...
On the other hand, I had also very bad experience with GE technicians in London, but not yet here in Cologne, Germany. Potentially, it depends on your local service?

Regarding Paul Smith's message, I totally agree. A real competitor is needed.
I haven't seen anything, which is nearly as good and versatile as the ÄKTA line (which doesn't mean they couldn't bee imporved!).
Especially, if you are in Science and not in a kind of production facility. The small Bio-Rad Econo system (about the same price tag as the ÄKTAPrime AFAIK), which we use here in the student course, is not nearly as sophisticated as a Prime...

Best,
Jan

--
Dr. Jan Gebauer
AG Prof. Baumann
Institut für Biochemie / Uni-Köln

----------
From: Charles Allerston

Dear Michael,

 

 

alternative people to service FPLC systems in the UK are called LC Services http://www.lcservs.com/ and came highly recommended to us.

 

 

cheers

 

charlie

 

 

----------
From: Mark Brooks <mark.x.brooks@gmail.com>
Date: 15 October 2011 15:44
To: CCP4BB@jiscmail.ac.uk


Dear Mike,
               At Evotec (a UK site), we gave up using GE to service
our GE instruments (!) due to problems with their bureaucracy. Agilent
offer service contracts for Aktas that are competitively priced and
are a work-alike in our experience.

For call-outs, they sub-contract the usual GE engineers that you would
normally see to perform maintenance, and do this with their usual high
level of professionalism.

I think it's a bit of a shame (for GE) that we have to use a third
party like this to organise the preventative maintenance visits etc.,
but it works very well for us.

Yours,

Mark