The invention provides a multipole device for a mass spectrometer system. The weight of a sample charge of oil sand ore having a bulk volume is determined. Furthermore, the phase change material or thermal battery may be used with a thermoelectric cooler to aid in ice production. A fastening member fastens the accessory panel to the spokes. The first function is used to regularly retrieve, for any dialog, the current state of its associated protocol stack state machine and to store the latter into the common database.