magnetic filament life extender ruins microswitches

[MENACHEM SHOHAM]

Dear Fellow Crystallographers,
We have recently installed a magnetic filament life extender on our 
RU200 rotating anode and then we had to remove it. I want to share our 
experiences with you.
Our X-ray system consists of an AFC6 Rigaku diffractometer and a San 
Diego Dual Multiwire area detector mounted on an RU200 rotating anode.
Sometime after installing the magnetic filament life extender 
(purchased from Charles Supper) we started to encounter problems 
during data collection, such as shutter malfunction or the goniostat 
would get stuck in a certain position and halt data collection. After 
trying to fix the problem ourselves for over a week we had Mike 
Holcomb from Molecular Structure Corporation come out to take a look 
at it. It turns out that THE MAGNETIC FILAMENT LIFE EXTENDER CAUSES 
THE MICROSWITCHES ON THE DIFFRACTOMETER TO MALFUNCTION. We have now 
removed the magnet and the system works fine. According to Mike 
Holcomb anybody using an AFC Rigaku diffractometer or an RAXIS image 
plate should NOT use a magnetic filament life extender.
  I hope this will save some of you some headaches.
                                     Regards,
                                              Menachem Shoham
                                          Case Western Reserve University 
                                          shoham at cwbio.bioc.cwru.edu