Policies

General Policies

- Only trained users, trainees under supervision and NMR personnel may use NMR spectrometers.
- You should only approach magnets to insert/remove samples, and should not bring anything other than your samples inside the 5 gauss line.
- No sample manipulation should be performed in the spectrometer rooms in Edison-Lecks and SSC. You should bring a clean, capped NMR tube with sample inside to the NMR lab.
- Gloves should be unnecessary. If you need to wear gloves to handle your sample tube, then your tube should not be placed in the magnet.
- Do not wear your lab coat into the NMR lab. Lab coats come into contact with potentially contaminated surfaces in your lab and should not be worn in common spaces including the hallways and elevators on the way to the NMR lab.
- If you break a sample tube while trying to insert it into a spinner, make sure to clean up all glass and chemicals. Take the spinner (and any glass remaining inside it) to the NMR Director or NMR TA. Do not attempt to clean the spinner yourself and do not leave that spinner at a spectrometer.
- If you break a sample while trying to insert or eject it from a magnet, immediately post a sign at the spectrometer to prevent anyone from using it. For instruments equipped with SampleCase Sample changers hit the red emergency stop button. Then contact the NMR TA or the NMR Director. Serious damage to the probe can result from broken samples, especially if users insert a new sample on top of the broken one.
- Since samples do break sometimes, NMR labs are not chemical-free areas so food and drink are not allowed.
- You should always consult the online calendar for the each spectrometer. Cryogen fills typically require ~ 1 hour and the magnet may not be very stable for some time afterwards. The fills will always be noted on the calendar.
- Only NMR personnel are allowed to reboot NMR consoles or computers. If you believe that one of these actions is required, you should contact the NMR TA or NMR Director.

NEO 400 Policies

- The NEO 400 runs in IconNMR automation mode most of the time with walkup time permitted.
- Experiments longer than 10 minutes should not be run during the day (9am-9pm). They should be run at night by setting the experiment to nighttime mode in the IconNMR interface.
- You may book time on the spectrometer calendar where you may use priority mode to ensure that your experiments run before other users' experiments. This functionality is intended to facilitate troubleshooting of complex experiments and the predictability needed for running unstable samples. If you have booked time, you may run experiments longer that 10 minutes, as long as they fit within your booked block. Bookings are only allowed at certain times. Blocks of up to 60 minutes can be booked from 9:30am-11:30am. Blocks of up to 10 minutes can be booked from 11:30am-7pm. Blocks of up to 30 minutes can be booked from 7pm-9pm.

- Daytime experiments longer than 10 minutes and use of priority mode are not permitted outside of a booked block. Breaking these rules impedes the work of other researchers and will lead to your NMR access being restricted.
- In order to prevent blocking the instrument for long periods during peak times, you are only permitted to queue up at most 3 daytime samples at once. If you need to run more than 3 samples, you can either run them in batches or submit them as nighttime experiments.
- You may contact the NMR director to request that additional experiment types be added to IconNMR for use in automation mode.
- You may contact the NMR director to request access to change additional acquisition parameters.
- Variable temperature at cold (max=-40 degrees) or warm (max=130 degrees) temperatures is possible, but only for users that have been specifically trained for this application.
- You may contact the NMR director to reserve time for manual operation if needed for a specific purpose. Manual operation requires stopping the automation run, which is disruptive to other users, so please only do this if you cannot get the data you need in automation mode.
- Additional training is required for a user to run the spectrometer manually.

Outside User Specific Policies

- Outside users may use the NEO 400, but experiments for internal Brandeis users take priority.
- All outside user experiments must be submitted in nighttime mode. This may still run the experiments during the daytime if they are shorter than 15 minutes, but only when no experiments for internal users are in the queue.
- At most seven slots in the sample changer may be used at one time by an outside user, to leave space for internal users.

400 MR Policies

†††††††††††† = Sign-up time limited to 30 minutes

Red times = $10/hour Green times = $5/hour Blue times = $2.50/hour

- There is no walkup time scheduled on the 400 MR. You should generally signup on the calendar for time. Short time slots of 30 minutes are available on weekdays between 10am-6pm.
- You may walkup and use it for short experiments if it is not in use, but be aware that signups take priority.
- Classes have the highest priority. Their scheduled times will be indicated on the online calendar.
- Acquisitions of 1 hour or more should be scheduled between 6pm-10am on weekdays and all day on the weekends. If you cannot be at the spectrometer at the time when your experiment will finish, you may leave a note with instructions on how you would like your spectrum saved. Remember, you may choose to request someone else save your data, but ultimately your data (and sample) are your responsibility.
- Probe tuning is essential on this spectrometer, since a number of different nuclei can be acquired.
- Variable temperature at cold (max -50 to -60 degrees) or warm (max=100 degrees) temperatures is possible, but only for users that have been specifically trained for this application.
- You must sign the logbook each time you use the spectrometer. Repeated failure to do so will result in a suspension of NMR privileges.
- A standard sample (D2O or H2O/D2O) is kept in the magnet whenever the system is idle. When you leave the spectrometer you should eject your sample and insert the standard at the proper depth. Do not insert any random sample (sealed sensitivity samples, phosphoric acid, user samples). If you cannot find the standard water sample, contact the NMR TA.

800 Policies

- There is no walkup time scheduled on the 800.
- The 800 is primarily scheduled by the day. Contact the NMR director to get reserve days on the instrument.
- Trained chemistry users that have been given access to the calendar may reserve time for short acquisitions. Full days booked for biological experiments take precedence, chemists cannot reserve short periods more than one day in advance. You may not use the instrument without a reservation on the calendar!
- You must sign the logbook each time you use the spectrometer. Repeated failure to do so will result in a suspension of NMR privileges.
- A standard sample (D2O or H2O/D2O) is kept in the magnet whenever the system is idle. When you leave the spectrometer you should eject your sample and insert the standard at the proper depth. Do not insert any random sample (sealed sensitivity samples, phosphoric acid, user samples). If you cannot find the standard water sample, contact the NMR TA.

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