Chromatography Forum

I have an old Shimadzu SPD-M10A detector that I would like to connect to a windows 7 laptop. Are there any USB adapters that will work?

The few SCSI-USB adapters that have existed have typically been pretty limited in their functionality and would only run things like disk drives. I've never experimented, but I have a fair few SCSI peripherals(I'm an old time Mac guy, although obviously not for most instrument computers) and I don't think they work even for "common" things like scanners.

Your best bet really is with a desktop and a SCSI card. For your own sanity and budget, you're probably better off with an older computer that has at least some PCI slots, as PCI Express SCSI cards can be hard to find and expensive.

Also, I don't know how much experience you have with SCSI, but it's worth mentioning that there about a million and a half different types of external SCSI connector. If the connector on the card you have doesn't match the instrument, it is normal to use a cable with different connectors on each end to connect everything up correctly. In some cases, this can be a needle in the haystack proposition. In my experience, you will make life MUCH easier if you use a SCSI card in your computer with either a DB-25 connector or an LVD-50 connector. I don't know what type of connector is on your instrument, but I'd GUESS it's probably either Centronics 50 or LVD-50. DB-25 to Centronics 50, LVD-50 to Centronics 50, and LVD-50 to LVD-50 cables are all relatively easy to find. Other configurations may not be so easy.

but you can not get EzChrom working with this SCSI

Thanks for the feed back. Here is the SCSI connector on the detector.

I am connecting to chromeleon 6.8 and unfortunately I need to use this laptop, an older PC is not an option.

Any input on this adapter? https://storage.microsemi.com/en-us/sup ... b2xchange/

Do note their note: Only drivers that are not included or embedded within a supported operating system are listed below. To see a complete list of supported operating systems see the Product Specifications.

But if you venture to the Product Specifications page, support ends at WinXP. Those drivers are unlikely to work, and from their wording it doesn't sound like it has native Win7 support, and especially for what you want to do. I'd be surprised if this works, but would like to know if you find that it does.

As suspected, I tried a couple different adapters (Microsemi and Adaptec) and neither worked.