Date: Mon, 3 Jan 94 17:40:06 CST
Subject: letter suggestions, signatures
From: johnf@ice

Tom:

(In the nobody-said-it-would-be-easy Dept)

In conversations with J. Valley here, some slight modifications to the
letter have been suggested (and I have made below), that I think make the
letter better (e.g. state bluntly that we're ticked at the Stamford vs
France runaround). I'm sure that those who'd sign the first version, should
have no problem with this version, and maybe some who wouldn't sign the
first might sign the second (it's more diplomatic and gets the message
across that some of us are really pissed off, and others moderately pissed
off). So, I'd say let's see the response from the other users (and see if
anyone else has worthwhile suggestions/modifications), but still shoot for
getting this off to France in 10-14 days.

So, add John Valley (U Wisconsin)to the list. Also, I received email
endorsements from --
-- Roger Nielsen (note the correct spelling of his name; I once mispelled
it when I was taking a course from him and he let me know it!), and
-- Peter Schiffman (UC Davis) ,and
-- Abhijit Basu (Indiana Univ.)

========================


Mr. Claude Conty
Marketing Director
Cameca Instruments
103, Boulevard Saint-Denis
BP-6, 92403 Courbevoie
Cedex, France

Dear Claude,

The purpose of this letter is to notify Cameca of the formation of a
Western Hemisphere SX-50 Users Group and to share with you the results of
an initial meeting in San Francisco on December 6. The primary mission of
our group is to share information (e.g., methods developed and solutions to
common problems). We hope to work with Cameca in the distribution of this
information for the greatest benefit to all current and future SX-50
owners.

We should emphasize initially that the SX-50 electron microprobe is
an excellent machine. However, like all sophisticated instruments, it has
occasional problems. In this brief letter, we would like to document, in a
general way, some of the most bothersome problems that some of us have
experienced. Others of us may have been fortunate enough not have had the
same severe level of problems, but nevertheless agree that there are
improvements that Cameca should consider.

Some of us have experienced considerable downtime (many weeks) due to
a
lack of prompt and knowledgeable response to our request for help. This is
extremely frustrating. This frustration hurts us and Cameca. As you must
be aware, Cameca does not enjoy a uniformly good reputation for service in
North America. We understand that this has been a major factor in some
recent lost sales (e.g., Univ. of Minnesota). Thus, we would hope that
Cameca will endeavor to improve its service reputation. We note that Cameca
has recently hired a new (albeit apparently a novice to the SX50) service
engineer, which will hopefully alleviate problems with response time for
west coast SX-50 owners. Some of us feel that a better solution (which we
understand existed in the past) might be to have engineers off the platform
in Courbevoie rotate here to service our SX50s.

This raises another concern that some/many of us have, which is the
perception that there is a communications problem between Cameca Inc
(U.S./Canada) and Cameca (France). While internal corporate operations are
none of our business, it is our business to have prompt and knowledgable
service, and not to feel that we have gotten lost in some trans-Atlantic
foulup.

We have a few suggestions for service improvements, such as providing
owners with a schedule for routine maintenance similar to the one given to
new car buyers. A clock that logs "HV Hours On" would be very useful for
determining maintenance intervals. This is especially important for those
of us that cannot afford a full- service contract. Some of our group
members have learned of a few of these needed procedures by accident after
costly repairs.

Another concern is the lack of a demo SX-50 in Stamford. While a demo
machine is no panecea,there are at least two service benefits: parts could
be tested before they are shipped (some of our group members have received
defective parts from Stamford) and parts from it could be borrowed when
they are not otherwise available in Stamford (an all-too-common problem).
We are sure there would be many other benefits to Cameca of having a demo
machine in Stamford.

Software. Many of us purchased a Cameca microprobe because of its
advanced software. However, when we started using the software, we
experienced many problems. Initially, we were told that those problems
were unique to our individual labs. However, we soon began to speak to
each other and discovered that many of us had the same problems.
Quantiview is potentially a powerful software product but it is froth
with bugs. Some of us have documented those bugs to your people (and now,
as an organized users group, we will try to do so in a more consistent
manner). We have been told that new releases of the software would address
these problems. Although some bugs have been fixed, some (and sometimes
major ones) remain and some new ones were created. There are several
different versions of the software in circulation, but there is little or
no communication from Cameca to the owners about these new releases unless
we complain.
Some of us have have heard rumors that Cameca is developing a new
microprobe with completely different software. Is this true and if so,
will the Sun-users be abandoned (like the DEC-users were) when the new
system becomes available? Some of our DEC owners are buying independent
software, which is apparently superior to Cameca's.
We would like a realistic timetable for future releases of Quantiview
and SunRay, and a list of the planned modifications. We understand that
the software is complex, that fixes and modifications are time-consuming,
and that priorities must be made. We would like to be involved in providing
input to Cameca by furnishing a consensus (of our members) of what are the
most important fixes and modifications in the future. We also hope that
Cameca will seriously consider providing more resources to deal with the
apparent overload in the software department.

We hope this letter will initiate a frank dialogue between our users
group and Cameca. We hope it is received in the spirit with which it is
sent, of a desire to work together to improve the SX50, for the benefit of
all of us. We look forward to receiving your response, which should be sent
to Mike Garcia (Univ. of Hawaii). He will distribute it to the other group
members.

Sincerely,



Mike Garcia, U. Hawaii
Tom Hulsebosch, U. Hawaii
Brian Patrick, UCSB
Roger Nielsen, Oregon State
Mike Drake, U. Arizona
John Shervais, U. So. Carolina
John Fournelle, U. Wisconsin
John Valley, U. Wisconsin

John Fournelle
Electron Microprobe Lab Internet:johnf@geology.wisc.edu
Dept of Geology & Geophysics Telephone: (608) 262-7964
University of Wisconsin Fax: (608) 262-0693
1215 West Dayton Street Amateur radio: WA3BTA/9
Madison, WI 53706 (14.030, 21.030 mHz)