COVID-19: Reduced on-site activities starting in November.

Dear users,

In the effort of limiting our team members on site during this second wave of COVID-19 we have decided to set up our support with one floating on-site IVIF staff between CLE and Agora and another person on remote at each time, until further notice.

All systems have been installed with remote access softwares and at any time please call us on our cell phone directly or by whatsapp is needed to show us by cam the situation (reminder Alexandre : +41795566771 or Roberto : +41795569271).

Trainings and specific experiments must be planned ahead of time to give us the possibility to get organized to assist you the best possible on site.

Thanks for your understanding and collaboration

RS2000 CLE C – new X-Ray tube

Dear IVIF users,

The replacement of the X-ray tube and the high tension cable on the RS2000 were successfully done yesterday. It is now working properly, but please pay attention to the new dose map below.

Again looking at dose map you can easily see that the RS2000 can replace the cesium irradiator for mice and cell irradiation. 

  • MICE: we have an homogenous irradiation of about 1.74 Gy / min using the rectangular RAD+ chamber

  • CELLS : Depending your dose and size of your plate you can easily use the shelf at different positions (see dose map below): For example a cell irradiation of 10 Gy can last about 10 min on the LISA1 Cesium irradiator (about 1 Gy/min at low level) while with the RS2000 a petri dish placed at the center of the shelf level 4 can receive 10 Gy in about 2 min.

Do not hesitate to ask for help,

best regards

An update on the RS2000 irradiator

20th of July

Dear Users,

Following up on the issue of the RS2000, we will replace the high tension cable and the X-Ray tube of the RS2000 this Thursday 23rd of July. The intervention will last a day and we will keep you updated on post-maintenance test so that you can come back to your normal routine on the irradiator. Sorry again for the inconvenience.

For people that didn’t move yet from the old Ceasium irradiator to the RS2000, please be aware that the RS-2000 is able to replace the Ceasium irradiator for mice and cells and that the irradiation on the RS-2000 is even higher and such shorter than to the Ceasium one. Moreover, it is also safer as it is not a permanent source of radiation. X-rays are emitted only when the intrument is ON.

—-

June 2020–

Dear IVIF users,

The RS2000 irradiator has been repaired but still requires the change of expensive parts. We can not guarantee any fault.

Indeed the reparation has been performed by ourselves as the technician in charge of the irradiator is still not able to travel.
The issue was the formation of an electrical arc at the cable linking the generator to the X-ray tube. We managed to clean up the cable and apply high tension grease to it for insulation. We could run a warm up and an exposure test. We are still waiting for the technician to come back to us to replace the defective parts.
Meanwhile and to play safe, we have set a threshold of 160 kV instead of 225 kV. This means that the dose rate is lower than usual ( 1.08 Gy/min and not 1.8 Gy/min). Please take this value into account for your future experiments. Please report to us any issue on the instrument and do not hesitate to ask for help or replacement on the Ceasium iraadiator

Thank you for your patience.