The Interscan Monitor Newsletter > Volume 3, Number 3

Volume 3, Number 3

WELCOME.....

To the Millennium Final Edition

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Y2K

Have you noticed what I've noticed? The hype is sure dying down, compared to late last year, and earlier this year, when all we heard was gloom and doom.

I think what happened was this:

When companies, such as Interscan, started testing things, we found that we were actually in pretty good shape, even before we made what few mods were required!

The biggest surprise here was that our venerable voice mail system, even though it runs under DOS (Horrors!!) transitions to 2000 with no problems at all.

Interscan's Y2K website is http://www.gasdetection.com/TECH/tn_y2k.html

I hope that your company has had the same good fortune.

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ETHYLENE IS EXCELLENT

How about a new application?? Would you believe ethylene, in low-ppm levels?

That's right. Now you're asking, who cares?

Many people do. Fruits, vegetables, and flowers give off ethylene as a natural process. However, when these products are harvested and stored, the levels can build up.

Too much ethylene will cause the crops to ripen way too quickly. On the other hand, if you WANT the crops to ripen faster, just add a little ethylene to the environment.

Great, except you need to measure it. That's where we come in. We're already getting raves about our portable ethylene analyzer, and serious inquiries about fixed, continuous monitoring systems. In many cases, data logging is required, as well.

Contact John Mora at sales@gasdetection.com to find out more.

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DETECTOR TUBES--TIME TO PHASE THEM OUT

This story is about an ethylene inquiry, but the moral is a lot more generic...

John got an inquiry about ethylene monitoring, and quoted out a portable analyzer. Remember that you have to read in the 0-10 ppm range, and even lower for certain crops.

The inquirer called him back to say that he had found a detector for $250, and each test only cost about $5. The gentleman was referring, of course, to detector tubes.

John cautioned him that he would have difficulty reading in the concentration range of interest, that there are serious potential interferences, and that the accuracy is very poor. But hey, they're cheap.

All this guy wants to do is protect about $250,000 worth of flowers!

Your webmaster is well familiar with detector tubes, having been involved with the sales of this product from 1978-1996. Back "in the day" they had certain advantages. They were cheap (around $18.00 per box of 10), and this was well before inexpensive instruments for the big gases (CO, CO2, H2S, NH3, Cl2) came on the scene.

However, even then, there were a few dirty little secrets.

**   You had line extension to the max. The same chemistry was being used in tubes labeled for different compounds.

**  Interferences were often not well documented.

**   Unless an acid-base reaction was taking place, using a classic indicator, the color changes could be very nebulous.

**   The specs on tubes, from batch to batch, could vary widely. The British Columbia (Canada) provincial government had a technician test each incoming batch against standard analytical methods. Accuracy would vary from ±2 percent to ±100 percent.

**   Finally, the whole business was based on big users buying lots of tubes for the big gases. Take away the common gases, and the market disappears. You can't live on the phosgene tube market.

Fast forward to the present.

Now there ARE cheap instruments for the common gases. Purchase a few boxes of tubes at $50 a box, and you might as well buy a little instrument. The truth is, many companies HAVE been buying little instruments, and the tube market is starting to dry up.

But, don't worry. The detector tube companies have adjusted to these market conditions by raising their prices!

So, for those applications (such as ethylene and hundreds of others) where a cheap instrument is not available, many users feel forced into using tubes, even at the higher prices.

Our recommendation is this:

Think twice about trusting ANY gas detection application to devices that during their heyday were still plagued with the problems detailed above. Do think that QC and performance will improve now that their market is dying??

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END OF THE MILLENNIUM WINDOWS TIPS

By the way, if you are one those who insists that the millennium ends on December 31, 2000, please consider the following:

**   The main attraction is that the "1" is changing to a "2"

**   Y1K was celebrated and dreaded at the end of 999 A.D.

**   The notion that there was no "Year 0" is irrelevant in that the A.D. (anno domini) designation of the current calendar already misses the birth of Jesus, now estimated to be April 5, 4 B.C. (in fact, a lot closer to when Easter is celebrated). Moreover, the main purpose of the calendar is to accurately determine the recurrence of seasons. Thus, except for future historians, whether this year is 1999 A.D. or 2003 A.D. is not exceedingly important; to fixate on when the millennium actually begins is mere trivia.

I say--enjoy the party!!

Now for those tips (Courtesy of Winfiles.com)...

**   To add icons to the start button, click and drag any object from the desktop and drop it on the Start button.

**   To avoid the Startup Programs, Hold down the CTRL key while entering Windows.

**   Emptying the \Windows\Temp folder of all its contents, and then running a Scandisk and Defrag can cure a lot of intermittent and annoying problems and also speed your system response up. This folder is supposed to be emptied whenever you shut down your computer, but if you don't shut it down or there are other than ".tmp" files or folders in there, then they will not be removed. This can cause boot problems, system lockups and shutdown hangups. These files also take up space that could be better used for other things.

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Until next time, I remain

Your faithful webmaster

 P.O. Box 2496 • Chatsworth, CA 91313-2496
 TOLL FREE: (800) 458-6153 (US & Canada) • PHONE: (818) 882-2331
 FAX: (818) 341-0642 • E-MAIL: info@gasdetection.com