Just what needs to happen to get your system from our factory to your lab? And just how crazy can things get? Let’s take a look at the amazing story of a 4 ton NMR system that was lifted, spun, angled, lowered and pushed through an 8 story building to its lowest basement level!

Vancouver, the beautiful city between the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Mountains

The installation was for the Life Science Centre at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and the magnet in question was a Bruker 850MHz /54 Ascend dewar type. Like all installations the system’s journey began in the Ultra High Field magnet factory in Rheinhäfen Karlsruhe, Germany which sees Bruker systems jet off to many a far flung destination. The usual first port of call is customs, and in this case the magnet and accessories were cleared at Canadian customs on Thursday September 22, 2011.

The very first Bruker 850 MHz SB Ascend having just touched ground in Vancouver

Thomas Buser, Operations Manager, Bruker Canada takes up the story.

“The system was delivered to the Life Science Centre at the University of British Columbia on Sunday morning September 25, 2011. Delivery often requires a lot of planning, especially when the system’s final destination is the lowest basement floor of a multi-level office and research building!

Magnet arriving in front of the Life Sciences Centre

The rigging required for this particular job was as comprehensive as we could prepare for. We knew it would be quite a challenge!

Not sure this is the right thing to do with an 850MHz magnet

We also knew it would be quite a long day, and so we began the rigging procedure very early on that Sunday morning. We started at 6:30am on September 25th and what followed was a sustained and very tricky maneuver that took pretty much the entire day.

Are we sure this is the right way to Room B3-125?

The first job was to get the 850 MHz magnet unloaded safely and moved through the very large atrium to it’s starting position! Once inside the main building, the only way this 4 ton system was going to make it to its final destination 3 floors down in the basement, was via the only opening big enough; the freight elevator shaft! But it wasn’t going to go through that as a walk-in customer!

First we had to disable the elevator and lock the doors open to provide access to the shaft. The magnet was so big it had to be rotated by 90 degrees for it to squeeze into the opening.

The rigging to lift and lower the magnet had to be erected hanging out of the 4th floor, and with nothing but a sheer drop the team had to create a temporary floor to guide the magnet into position by hand inside the shaft! You needed a good head for heights for this one!

So, with a combination of colleagues hanging out of the 4th floor doorway, and pulling and pushing from inside and outside the shaft, the magnet inched it’s way inside.

Will it fit?

Oh yes, plenty of space

Once inside, another tricky maneuver required the magnet to be hoisted while the temporary boarded floor was removed, leaving the magnet free to, slowly but surely, descend through the basement levels.

Magnet “in transit” inside the freight elevator shaft

And then the inch-by-inch process begins again, in reverse.

What goes in the elevator shaft has to come back out

What a trip! 3-2-1... pull!

A while later and “Ta dah” the tricky maneuvre ends with a thumbs-up!

That was easy!

So, just how many guys does it take to move an 850 MHz magnet?

By roughly 5pm the magnet had been pulled and pushed, with the help of the entire team, to its final destination.

Heavy duty hydraulic magnet hoist

The magnet was then hoisted into position in room B3-125, its home for (hopefully) decades to come!

The initial installation process started the following day Monday September 26, 2011.

Magnet being seismically restrained

Within a few weeks the process was ready for Mr. Klaus Michel from Bruker Germany to arrive and take over the final part of the installation and thus the energizing process began on Wednesday October 12, 2011. The magnet reached full field (850MHz) as of Thursday October 20, 2011 (1st major hurdle passed). The following week was all cryo shimming and letting the magnet stabilize.

This almost looks finished now, doesn’t it?

During the week of October 31st, Klaus and Thomas installed the Sample Mail, Sample Case and the BSNL (Nitrogen liquefier) accessories and ran all the console cabling.

Long day at the office for a Bruker engineer

By Thursday November 10, 2011 Dr. Lawrence McIntosh signed the acceptance report and the epic journey of the 850 MHz came to a close. It now begins it’s new life at the Life Sciences Centre pioneering research into the mechanisms of microbial diseases.”

Lawrence McIntosh, Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, and Chemistry with the new 850 MHz system