 Take care to mount crystals in loops which resist moving in a nitrogen-gas cold-stream. |
This means keeping the “neck” of the loop as short as possible, and possibly reinforcing it with 5-minute epoxy glue.
The newer style of kapton loops may also be advantageous over the older style of 20mm nylon loops. These measures are particularly important with low mosaicity, highly diffracting crystals, where crystal motion in the beam will be particularly evident, and lead to poor quality data. |
To whatever degree possible, keep all the pin lengths consistent for your projects. |
Take care when packing vials onto canes. |
| It is recommended that canes holding vials be shipped inside protective plastic sleeves. During transport, it is possible for unprotected pins to drop out of magnetic-ring vials, and into the bottom of the shipping basket. Loss of samples is usually severe, if not complete, under these conditions. |
Familiarize yourself with, and adhere to, all relevant safety regulations regarding
your shipments to SBC-CAT. |
| This includes all Department of Transport (DOT) regulations. Most Users find it easiest to ship their samples via FedEx,
and have them shipped over-night delivery. |
Bring enough people. |
Both 19ID and 19BM beamlines at SBC-CAT can prove exhausting for experimenters. Either beamline will typically
collect a full data set in roughly 30-60 minutes. This includes all steps of the process – mounting the crystal on the goniostat head in the experimental hutch, aligning the crystal in the cameras, predicting the best data collection strategy, as well as the actual data collection and data processing itself. It is usually most efficient if over-lapping shifts of experimenters are manned by alternating groups of people, thus allowing for communication between the groups,
as well as food, sleep, and a break in the action. |
Pack for comfort. |
Chicago can be cold during the winter; humidity at the beamlines routinely drops to low single-digits, and the dry environment can be very uncomfortable when you are exposed to it for several hours per day. It is a advisable to bring along eye drops, for re-wetting your eyes, as well as warm winter clothing. A good pair of comfortable shoes will also prove invaluable for long hours of working on the hard concrete APS experimental floor. For safety reasons, open-toed shoes, open-heeled shoes and shorts are not permitted attire while working at the beamlines. |
Make your trip plans carefully. |
When planning your stay at SBC-CAT, be aware that User Groups may fall behind in processing data, preferring instead to direct their energies towards the most efficient collection and backing up of raw data images. You will be scheduled for approximately one day of computer processing time, after your beamline access time ends. This is the time that you may clean up your work-bench area in the biochemistry lab, re-pack all of your belongings – and possibly catch up on some sleep and food before you hit the road.
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