You tend to see tons of photos, videos and blogs pertaining Agilent instruments, buy not very much of other OEMs. I'm going to try to change that up.
Today I'm adding some images and information about an old PerkinElmer GCMS (mainly the inner parts of the MS). This particular system belongs to a water quality testing lab in NY state.
I've been working with systems like this for almost 20 years. They are robust and hard to kill. Unlike the Agilent MS, these systems have a complex inner and out source with only one filament (Agilent has 2). When the filament burns out you don't have the luxury of switching to the other.
With an inner and outer source you have to remove the inner source to clean it, with the option of pulling the outer source as well. Cleaning either is a lot of work, but the outer source requires the removal of the top plate assembly.
There also far more parts to the sources than other manufacturers sources (especially Agilent), although the newer model SQ8 replaces this antiquated technology with a source that can be taken apart and put together in under 30 seconds.
Some complain about having to clean an Agilent source, butt it only takes a little perspective to see which is a bigger headache. The pictures above are only the outer source.