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Dear all,

I apologise for the off-topic post but I'm guessing there may be some  
people on the list who can help me...

We have a Xenogen IVIS 100 small animal in-vivo imager with a  
Spectral Instruments camera. We have had two occasions in the last  
year where a short power outage has resulted in us being told the  
camera needs replacement. The whole system is protected by so-called  
"surge supressors" (http://www.interpower.com/scripts/cgiip.exe/ 
WService=ic/findpart.p?w_part=85010071) and at least on the second  
occasion it was connected to a industrial level UPS that went down  
and came back up cleanly.

Part of the problem seems to be that if the power comes back the  
computer doesn't restart and therefore the camera controller doesn't  
receive the correct set temperature (-105°C) and instead the whole  
system cools to the maximum capacity of -140°C (the design is such  
that apparently the cooling system just goes full on all the time and  
there is a heater in the camera head to keep the CCD at the (warmer)  
set temperature).

I would love to hear from any others using Xenogen systems about what  
their experiences have been and what advice they are receiving about  
power supplies because we are getting conflicting message about what  
could have gone wrong (eg the manual implies that power outages can  
be dealt with,  whereas we are being told verbally we need to supply  
100% reliable power)).

Regards,

Adrian Smith
Centenary Institute, Sydney, Australia