Cryo Recovery

dreamscience now offer a non-contract, 24 hour freezer recovery service. If your cryo freezer goes down and no-one else can help, then dreamscience can recover your samples and or deliver a pre cooled cryo freezer to your premesis. (This Service is offered on a first come, first served basis and is without warranty)

24 hours! When a cryo freezer fails within office hours, you can often call on colleagues, swap samples into other freezers and generally solve the problem. However, things often go wrong outside of office or when you can't solve the problem - call dreamscience and read below to help you keep your samples as cold as possible while we are enroute.

Call 01782 409682

Freezer Breakdown - What to do before help arrives

The first indication that your cryo freezer has a problem is usually when the temperature starts to drift up. This happens over a period of hours and following the tips below can help keep your freezer going as long as possible until help arrives.

• One of the most common failures in a -80°C freezer experiences is failure of the 2^nd stage compressor.  Take a desktop fan or similar, remove freezer filter cover (usually pops out or a few screws) and blow cool air directly onto the heat exchanger. This reduces the strain on the 2^nd stage compressor and the freezer will often pull down.
  
  
• Clean the filter and clean dust jammed in the heat exchanger with a brush or similar - take care to keep your hands clear of moving parts.  Even if the freezer is fully functioning, clean the filter regularly by vacuuming or washing.
• Keep freezer doors shut and only open in the case of inserting dry ice (see below) or for samples to be removed.
  
  
• If possible, decrease the ambient temperature in the room by turning off heating and turning on air conditioning / fans and opening windows.
• If the freezer is in a room with a low ceiling or against a wall, move the freezer to a clear area at allow more air to circulate.
• If space is available, place a few bags of dry ice inside the freezer and release the pressure at regular intervals.

Working Freezers: Fill any empty space in -80°C freezers with cardboard boxes/polystyrene/racking. This increases the cooled thermal mass and helps hold the temperature low when the freezer door is opened during normal use.  If breakdown occurs, you should have more time and to get help.

LN₂ SYSTEMS – CRYOGENIC SAMPLE STORAGE

• Check metal casing for sweating / frost / ice build up, if present unit has ‘gone soft’ (no vacuum between inner and outer skins), your mission critical samples will be unsalvageable within hours - Top up manually with LN₂ to buy more time.
  
  
• On automated units, if a solenoid has a fault, a good check is to turn off the controller or feed vessel as warm air could be flowing into the gas causing it to boil off more quickly.
  
  
• Keep the system closed other than for LN₂ top up.

Working LN₂ Systems: Leave empty racking inside the unit (with empty sample boxes), this helps in maintaining the temperature of the system during normal use and will help hold temperature if the system malfunctions.

These points are intended as a guide only. Seek the assistance of a qualified/authorised engineer wherever possible.