These rules may be familiar to you, but recall into mind when things go wrong:
Usually, a potentiostat is not defect. The common error sources are gas bubbles within the Haber-Luggin-capillary, the salt-bridge, or general bad cables connecting the potentiostat to the cell.
To check this, plug in a dummy cell according to the scheme below into the potentiostat and check its performance.
If this works, but the cell does not work, replace the reference electrode by a copper wire dipping directly into the cell (without Haber-Luggin-capillary and other bridges). You should be able to control the potential when setting the operating switch to "I" - whatever the potential meter means now. If not, the bug lies within the cell cable. Check the connections according to the list given above, bending the cables violently during testing to find possibly broken lines (2 persons may be necessary to perform this test).
If the cables are in good order, but the dummy cell test does not work, consider the potentiostat to be wrong.
Change to another current range and repeat the testing. If things are working properly (keep in mind the dummy cell will show other values depended of the set current range), a range resistor may have burnt out in the range tried previously.
If all these tests show bad results, take into consideration that the potentiostat might be wrong.
At this point we recommend to ring us up to or email us: info [at] bank-ic.de.
Bank Elektronik -
Intelligent Controls GmbH
Hubertusstr. 38
D-35415 Pohlheim
Tel. +49 - 6403 - 60 98 60
Fax +49 - 6403 - 60 98 622
e-Mail: info [at] bank-ic.de
Data sheets for downloadTrouble - shootingDemo software downloadSelecting a potentiostat