On 6/15/2010 3:14 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> ...still not sure exactly why it's so expensive though. Probably design
>>> time / production volume.
>>>
>>
>> Well, I'm sure the powerful electromagnet and the detector add to the
>> expense. Not to mention the serious design time to design a very high
>> gain, low noise amplifier.
>
> I'm no expert, but I don't think a mass spectrometer actually requires a
> particularly powerful magnet. (It's only throwing microscopic particles
> around, after all.) The photomultiplier might be expensive; I don't know
> how it works. The ADC is probably quite expensive as chips go (although
> not hundreds of thousands of pounds, I wouldn't have thought).
>

Well, how powerful are the magnets that deflect the electrons in a CRT? 
It has to be powerful enough to deflect the ions moving at the speed 
they're moving enough so they land at different points on the detector 
according to their mass.

Of course I could be (as I usually am) grossly wrong about that.

-- 
~Mike

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