HANDSHAKING Agilent MWD to FOXY 200 fraction collector

[hoovervillain]

I'm currently working with Chemstation ver. B.0.3.1 with an Agilent 1100 LC system.

How can I connect a FOXY 200 fraction collector so as to appropriately handshake with the LC system? I've seen it is a common instrument combination but cannot find any specifics on how to do it. Anybody out there ever work with this combo before?

I'm not sure if I should be trying to get an analog signal out of the MWD or have the Foxy connected to the LC controlling unit. And are there any drivers/firmware out there to facilitate this? Hours of searching the web have yielded nothing useful.

[unmgvar]

you need to do 2 things
1. send out a start signal out from either the pump or sampler the foxy
so it knows that the run time has started,
2. if you want to collect according to the signal as well, then you need to connect the analog out of the MWD to the analog in of the foxy
the foxy will see +-1 Volt so you might have to check on a first few runs the value that you will need to use for correct collection
also i do not remember if you can set in the foxy the very crucial factor of volume delay of the tubing
this means you might have to fake the time or signal for collection to compensate for the volume delay

from my experience if you know what you want to collect and it is something that will repeat itself, going by time window is the best way, and you do not need to deal with the signal
but if you are going to do collect for R&D purposes and you are unsure of the chromatography then you should have the signal as well

[carls]

By handshake do you mean you want to control/program it from Chemstation? I have used this with an Agilent HPLC before and simply used the approach unmgvar described and is given in the manual:
http://www.knauer.net/dwnld_fls/m_e_fr_foxy-jr.pdf

I did not bother to try the serial communication described in the manual since it seemed unlikely chemstation would/could support it.