Old Waters 600E connection to more recent system

[Blind Angel]

Me and some friends have been given a set of old HPLC and we are trying to make them work.
Currently we have:
- Waters 600E
- Waters 600-MS
- Waters 990 PDA
- Waters 991 PDA
- Waters 484 Tunable absorbance detector
- Waters 470 Scanning fluorescence detector
- Waters 700 WISP Automatic Injector
and Water 717 plus Automatic Injector

They were all stacked up in a storage and nobody know how they work anymore, nor how they were hooked up. Most of this stuff seems to have been new in the early 90's (1991-1994) and were probably decommissioned around 2001. They don't all have IEEE-488 connector and most seems to have been connected using RS-232 and their terminal connector since there are Bus SAT/IN Module with connector laying around. The old computer (a 386) seems to be out of function.

We have found most manual online, except for the 484, 990 and 991, but still have a hard time figuring everything out. Every instruments seems to be powering up fine, and their autodiagnostic don't turn negative.

We would like to know if anybody have any experience with these old system, and connecting them to more recent computer. From what I read Waters use a proprietary IEEE-488 protocol which make think a bit harder. Is there a way to connect them exclusively using their terminal connector and control them using a generic program. If so which program? Is Chromeleon or EZChrom be able to work with such old system? Is there open source alternative? Any documentation on the communication protocol?

We didn't contact the Waters vendor, we don't think I'll be able to afford anything yet. Do you think we should do it anyway?

[lynzjm]

Hi there,

we've just completed a really complicated transfer of an older Agilent 1100 from Chemstation to Chromeleon by ourselves, along with the associated CAD, ELSD and ECD detectors. I'm aware this is not a Waters system however one of our main issues with the older Agilent was the firmware on the LAN cards within it - meaning the new computer system (Chromeleon) did not recognise or assign IP addresses to the old system. We had to update the firmware and were then able to move on with the actual set up. I'm not sure if this is relevant to your machines but might be something to bear in mind if it is!

We also had real problems as Chromeleon is a Dionex software whilst the Agilent is of course Agilent equipment. This meant no-one really took responsibility for helping us as each set of support staff were unfamiliar with the combination and often said it was the others software/hardware! So if you have the option of software the waters one will mean their tech support will probably be much more able to guide you through the set up over the phone and what types of connections (LAN/USB/R232 etc) you need and if any converter boxes are necessary.

Hope thats of some (small!) help!

x

[gstaepels]

Hello,

I still have a Waters 600E pump, with a 717 WISP and had a 484 UV detector. You could run this system perfectly, even if you do not have the IEEE connection to your computer. What you need is a A/D convertor, to take the analog signal from the detector to the computer and the chromatography software. However, you are not able to control the instrument. You can do this by programming the pump and the autosampler.
The sequence is started from the WISP and upon injection, the pump program starts. I have done this a couple of years ago and it works.
Hope this helps and good luck!
Gilbert

[Blind Angel]

I was able to find what you are talking about in the manual, this helped me a lot thank you.

Also new question: the 991 and 990 PDA are connected using a SCSI connector, I don't know if this is a custom modification or come from some system. I check our LAC/E card (found one ISA and one PCI) and they don't have any SCSI connector so I guess that it may be possible to use any generic SCSI card? Am I right?

[armball]

I was able to find what you are talking about in the manual, this helped me a lot thank you.

Also new question: the 991 and 990 PDA are connected using a SCSI connector, I don't know if this is a custom modification or come from some system. I check our LAC/E card (found one ISA and one PCI) and they don't have any SCSI connector so I guess that it may be possible to use any generic SCSI card? Am I right?

No. the connector is for the IEEE cable connection to the waters Bus Lac/e card that goes in the PC ISA slot. The Millenium software would control the PDA settings and data aquisition through that cable. If the PDA has a front panel (mine doesn't) you could at least set a wavelength channel to monitor and use the analogue out terminal to connect and ADC-PC data logger (glorified chart recorder).

[lcguy1]

The 990/991 will only be able to be used with a software package(Empower??) driving them. As you have noticed, there are no keyboards on the front of these. That was the 994 that had the keyboard. You can hook up the other detectors and take an analog signal out to any other program or to a strip chart if needed. The pumps can be run manually, or programmed from the front keypad. As for the WISP or the 717, I would ditch the WISP, since parts and any support would be hard to come by. The 717 is still a viable instrument, so that could be used. You can set these up using the 717 to start the run by connecting inj. start signals to the other pieces and taking analog data to whatever you have.