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- Posts: 2
- Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2015 7:50 pm
I'm looking at purchasing a used GC/MS without a control PC attached to it. My question is this - what do I need to know about any given GC/MS in order to communicate with it? Are there resources somewhere I can find the pinouts/serial protocol for the unit? Things I need to watch out for? Is the control software standard or interoperable?
I occasionally see some older, but highly functional units come past locally, as well as the usual online sources. Based on the sources of these units and the reason for replacement, I've got a very high degree of confidence the units themselves work (especially the ones locally). I either own or have access to all the test equipment necessary to diagnose and build control electronics and software, so this part is not daunting. There's enough information available on the calibration and interpretation of the data that this portion of the task does not concern me. Likewise, the data libraries and interpretation are not an issue. I'm also looking at this as a long term project, so I do not expect the work to take less than a year to go from documentation and a physically functional unit to having software written and PC control in place.