Chromatography Forum

I was wonder how differents companies has developed
software, control and analysis, for chromatograh from
varian, hp, agilen, etc, is over there one, or a few, standards
communication protocol, I'm creating a board control for:

1. Oven temperature
2. Injection system
3. AD high resolution for interface with FID PID
... etc

based on a uC and I'd like communicate it with a
software based on windows,,, any idea ?

In the very beginning I though that a few smart people
may be take a hp5890, for example and broke in
deep just for get how it is controlled, but there is
over there a good protocol for OEM for GC ?

Eres agentino, así que te hablaré en español... Mira te puedo ayudar proporcionándote drivers de la varian que utilizan para instalar en los cromatógrafos de la galaxie... ¿qué te parece?

Unfortunately, the common approach is to use proprietary and different communication protocol for each instrument (frequently even by the same manufacturer).

This makes a chromatography software manufacturers life (I work for one) a nightmare when trying to implement an instrument control.

In past, the communication protocols were documented in the manuals, nowadays it is no more the case.

The protocols for the major brand GC are usually proprietary and are available upon non disclosure agreement or not at all (depending on the company policy).

So you have two options -

1) follow the trend and make your own communication protocol - a driver will have to be prepared for each software which should control your GC.

2) get some published communication protocol and let your GC to emulate that instrument. This could simplify the driver development, however it will not guarrante the existing drivers will work - they usually check the model and version of the GC reported from the firmware and you will probably dont want to give false identification

The 5890 will be a good choice (it is rather widespread) but be aware there are lot of different versions and configurations of them and at least two commucation protocols (depending on the communication card - there is rather common HP-IB/RS232 and not so commonly used plain RS-232. You could probably find a protocol for this RS-232, but most drivers will not work with it.



Ivan Vins
www.dataapex.com