We have a AKTA start and a AKTA Pure. Don’t like the AKTA start at all. The software is buggy (command not performed correctly as it should do) but the touch screen is OK. By now I have changed two failed/leaking valves and the UV detector for the AKTA start with very light usage. AKTA start uses a peristaltic pump that cannot reach high pressure. The gradient is controlled by timing between two valves since both buffers are sucked instead of pumped out of A and B before mixer. I will not suggest anyone to buy AKTA start. Not a very good system. The company will not provide any service for you. You need to do all the fixing yourself. If you take out the tubing (as suggested by the manual) for the peristaltic pump when not using, the solution will be siphoned out to waste line. Poorly designed. Watch those solenoid vales, they are leaky. AKTA Pure is a good system but expensive.
Agree with many of you. After changing to Cytiva, the customer service is horrible and the whole company become a money sucker. Once I was asking some suggestion about configuration changed for AKTA Pure. Two months passed without response then asking me how satisfied I was for the service. I gave zero. Then they contacted me and give me $3000 quote for remote consulting. I ended up just reimaging back the hard drive to recover the setting. I am still maintaining an very old AKTA FPLC (dark grey machine) using parts from eBay. It is still a very good system. Best, [cid:[email protected]] From: CCP4 bulletin board <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Kovtun, Oleksiy Sent: Friday, September 16, 2022 8:48 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] off-topic: experience BioRad NGC vs Aekta Pure Hi Eike, Instead of AKTA Pure I purchased a combo of AKTA Go (€24k with air sensor) and AKta start (€9k with frac collector). It provides two parallel workstations with AKTA start handling the dirty job of loading lysates onto affinity cartridges and the GO doing clean SEC stages. For multiple proteins isolation, this combo beats AKTA Pure flat out for half price. Note that AKTA Start can’t be equipped with an air sensor, and sample loading need to be done by time control. However, we didn’t find it to be an issue. Also, AKTA Start needs a separate version of Uncocrn suite for an extra €1k. So we skipped that and control the system via the built-in touchscreen. As for the longevity, we need to see. Six months into active operation went smooth—the only malfunction was the Windows update breaking network card drivers. Best, Oleksiy Dr Oleksiy Kovtun Max-Planck Research Group Leader Molecular Mechanisms of Membrane Trafficking Max-Planck-Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences City-Campus, Hermann-Rein-Str. 3, 37075 Göttingen Germany Email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> https://www.mpinat.mpg.de/kovtun Phone:+49-551-3899-410 On 16. Sep 2022, at 09:39, Schulz, Eike-Christian <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Dear all, I am considering to purchase a chromatography system for routine protein purification. The device is supposed to be used in a multi-user environment, hence ease of use, ease of training and ease of maintenance is important. I am rather looking for a robust system people like to use than a system that comes with many bells and whistles that no one dares to touch. * Is there any particularly _bad_ experience with either system? * Is there any specific advantage of one system over the other? * Does anyone have experience about (long-term) stability / performance of the systems? * Do you think the higher price-point of the Aekta systems is justified? With best regards, Eike ________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1 ________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1 ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1 This message was issued to members of www.jiscmail.ac.uk/CCP4BB, a mailing list hosted by www.jiscmail.ac.uk, terms & conditions are available at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/
