Discussion Category: Scintillation Counters
H# abort: count rate too low
Hello everyone,
We have a Beckman LS6000 Scintilation Counter in our lab. Until recently it worked quite well, but now we get following error message:
"invalid sample count: H# abort: count rate too low"
even in positive controls. I already tried resetting the power which did not work. I also deactivated the H# function in the method settings, which leads to a signal of 0.0 cpm.
For any advice I would be very grateful!
Best regards.
Reply byIf you are getting a H# abort it is telling you that either there is a problem with the "front end" of the electronics, namely the PMT's, their sockets or the high voltage power supply. There could also possibly be a problem with the Cs137 source drive which is what is used to calculate the h# value. The first thing that I would recommend is for you to try to count samples in the most basic way and that is just by doing a CPM count. If you get valid sample counts in CPM mode then you can be pretty sure that ALL of the front end electronics are working correctly and that would lead you towards the Cs137 source drive. This is a radioactive source and without knowing anything about your mechanical qualifications I will stop right there. It is not a difficult system to work with but it you also have to know what you are doing, too. Hope that helps.
Don