Ok. First, please forgive me if I am posting this in the incorrect place.

So I've been tasked with getting a recently donated HPLC system up and running. As far as I know the system had been running well at a local biotech firm. My experience has been with typical inorganic instrumentation (e.g., icp-ms, icp-oes, etc.) so this is new territory for me, though I am familiar with the underlying principles of LC.

Now the components are a Shimadzu pump (LC-8A), uv-vis detector (SPD-10A), and controller (CBM-20A). Both the pump and detector connect to the controller unit by what appears to be an optical cable and the controller has an ethernet connection out to connect to the network or a dedicated computer.

The initial goal of this instrument is to make it a prep scale system to create in-house standards by fractionating biodiesel. I believe there is also a fraction collector in the lab as well.

It appears that the OpenLab EZChrom will only communicate with the controller unit, so I would have to manually adjust pump and detector settings. Would this be a hassle? The other option I have found is the Clarity software. According to their website it should run ALL the components. I'm leaning towards Clarity for simplicity, but would love to hear some opinions.

Help and advice is greatly appreciated!

Cheers.