Buying guide
Who pays for the lamp when the instrument is under a service contract
August 10, 2026
When I started listing lamps I assumed most of this market was closed to me. If a lab is on a service contract, the engineer arrives with an original part, and nobody at the lab ever chooses a lamp.
So I went and read the contract terms. The assumption was wrong, and it was wrong in a specific way that is worth knowing whichever side of it you are on.
The agreements separate parts into two groups, and a lamp usually falls in the group the lab pays for.
Repair against routine maintenance
Service plans separate consumables into two groups.
Consumables required for repair are covered. If a power supply fails and damages the lamp, the lamp is part of the repair, and the plan pays for it.
Consumables required for routine maintenance and operation are not covered. A lamp that simply reaches end of life has not failed. It has worn out, the way a column or a seal wears out, and wear is the lab’s cost.
That distinction is reasonable, and it is applied consistently. It is also the whole answer to who buys the lamp.
Agilent publishes it plainly, which makes them the clearest example rather than an unusual one:
Consumables required for the routine maintenance and operation of the instrument are not included as part of any Service plan, except as provided in the lamp replacement benefit contained in Agilent CrossLab Silver Plus.
What that means tier by tier
Taking Agilent’s CrossLab plans, because the terms are public:
| Plan | Lamp at end of life | Lamp damaged by another failure |
|---|---|---|
| Silver (standard) | Not covered. The lab buys it | Covered, as a consumable required for repair |
| Gold (standard) | Not covered. The lab buys it | Covered |
| Silver Plus | 1 LC deuterium lamp a year included | Covered |
| Enhanced PM Uplift | 1 LC deuterium lamp a year included | Covered |
So on the two most common tiers, an end-of-life lamp is a purchase the lab makes. The engineer may well fit it, but somebody at the lab raised the order.
If that turns out to be you, the part is decided by the detector module number rather than the system name. Which lamp your Agilent detector takes works through it.
flowchart TD
A["The lamp needs replacing"] --> B{"Did it fail because<br/>something else failed?"}
B -->|"Yes, e.g. a power supply<br/>failure damaged it"| C["Covered as a consumable<br/>required for repair"]
B -->|"No, it reached<br/>end of life"| D{"Which plan<br/>are you on?"}
D -->|"Silver Plus, or a plan<br/>with the PM uplift"| E["1 lamp a year included.<br/>The second one is yours"]
D -->|"Standard Silver<br/>or Gold"| F["You buy the lamp"]
D -->|"PM only, labour only,<br/>or no contract"| F
F --> G["Read the module number,<br/>then get it quoted"]The part people get wrong
The mistake is not reading the contract. It is assuming that “under contract” is one thing.
A comprehensive plan with parts, labour and preventive maintenance bundled together does behave the way people expect. Most instruments are not on one. They are on a mid-tier plan, or a labour-only plan, or a preventive maintenance visit once a year, or nothing at all.
And a preventive maintenance visit is not the same as a parts allowance. A PM visit is an engineer arriving, checking the instrument and replacing the items on the PM checklist. A deuterium lamp is not usually on that checklist unless the plan says so.
Other vendors do not all publish this
I have quoted Agilent because their wording is public and specific. Other manufacturers are less explicit online, and I am not going to tell you what your Waters, Shimadzu or Thermo agreement says when I cannot read it.
But the split between repair and routine maintenance is the normal shape of these agreements. It is worth checking your own rather than assuming it either way.
The practical version: ask your vendor for the exclusions list in writing. Every service organisation has one. It is a fair question, they can answer it quickly, and the answer changes how you budget.
Why any of this matters to you
Three reasons, and only one of them is about price.
Budget. If you assumed lamps were covered and they are not, that is an unplanned purchase order in the middle of a quarter. It usually arrives at the moment the instrument is already down.
Lead time. The moment you discover the lamp is yours to buy is the worst moment to start finding a supplier. Knowing in advance means you can have a part identified and a price agreed before you need it.
The instruments most likely to be affected. Older systems are the ones least likely to have a full plan. Either the lab let it lapse, or the manufacturer no longer offers full support on hardware of that age. An Agilent 1100, a Waters 2487, a Shimadzu SPD-10A. Those are exactly the instruments where the lamp is the lab’s purchase, and plenty of them are still in routine use.
Four questions to ask about your own agreement
- Is an end-of-life lamp covered, or only a lamp damaged during a repair? This is the question. Everything else is detail.
- Does my plan include a lamp allowance, and how many a year? If the answer is one a year and you have two detectors running most days, the second lamp is yours.
- What is on the preventive maintenance checklist? Ask for the actual list. A PM visit and a parts allowance are different things.
- Can I have the exclusions list in writing? Keep it with the instrument file. It answers this question permanently, for whoever asks next.
Whether I can help
If you are on a full comprehensive contract, I cannot help you and I would not try. The parts come with the plan, and replacing them with anything else is a conversation for your service provider, not for me.
If you are on a standard plan, a PM-only plan, or no plan, then the lamp is your purchase and you are free to decide where it comes from.
Before you conclude the lamp is finished at all, it is worth running the free checks in before you replace the deuterium lamp. A noisy baseline is often something else, and that is a cheaper answer than any of this.
Either way, find out before the lamp dies rather than after. If you tell me the detector module number, I will tell you which lamp it takes and roughly what it should cost, whether or not you buy it here. The detector lamps page carries the OEM cross-reference for each one. Knowing what the part is worth makes the conversation with your service provider easier too.
Sources
- Agilent, Consumables for repair. The wording quoted above, the Silver and Gold exclusion for lamps that burn out from normal use, and the Silver Plus and Enhanced PM Uplift lamp benefit.
- Agilent, CrossLab service plans comparison chart and bundled repair and maintenance plans, for what the plans do include: parts, travel, labour, and consumables required for repair.
I could not find equivalent published exclusion wording from Waters, Shimadzu or Thermo. That is why this guide quotes Agilent and asks you to check your own agreement. I am not going to describe terms I have not read.