Third party HPLC control software.

[shoom]

Hi,

I have recently changed jobs and moved from somwhere that agilent equipment was used with chemstation software. I am now somewhere that Perkin-elmer equipment and total chrom is used. Top put it frankly it is a pig. Does anyone have any good suggestions for third party control and data collection software? I know about EZChrom but that looks pricey and that is an isue too.

Thanks in adavnce for any suggestions. I know I want the moon on a stick here but any help is greatly appreciated.

S

[varossf]

Hi,

I know about EZChrom but that looks pricey and that is an isue too.


S

Did you already ask for a price? It is all about which PerkinElmer components you have. Control does not come for free and anything that comes for free well, is free!
SO contact your local Agilent LI specialist.

[shoom]

Hi,

I know about EZChrom but that looks pricey and that is an isue too.


S

Did you already ask for a price? It is all about which PerkinElmer components you have. Control does not come for free and anything that comes for free well, is free!
SO contact your local Agilent LI specialist.

I got a price from the net, around £3000 I think. I realise you get what you pay for but I will struggle to get the powers that be to cough that much up I am afraid. It will just be a case of cope with what you have and everyone will be queueing up to use an agilent while the perkin elmer sits idle.

Having said that, nothing can possibly be worse than total chrom.

[rwjohnson]

Just wanted to inform you that EZChrom is from Agilent. It was my understanding that Chemstation is used for pc control and EZChrom is for network.

If you are looking for network control, I have been using Atlas (from thermo-fisher) and like it. It can be used for PE as well. I like it because it is easy to overlay chromatograms.

Good luck on your search.

Ron J

[Andy Alpert]

EZChrom is the version for several workstations. There is a version called EZ Start that does the same thing on a single workstation. It's a lot cheaper. See how much that costs in your market.

[WK]

Hi Shoom,
Please can you be more specific with your problems with Totalchrom? I've been using it for years (as well as Turbochrom) with no real problems other than the odd comms situation with HPLC with is never fatal. (We have a Lantronix box). I have PE GCs and HPLC for 10+ years and never had board/fan/bearing problems. I am aware though that Totalchrom might not be as popular as other software - but we have found it easy to navigate.
Regards
WK

[Hfranz]

You should also consider Chromeleon from Dionex (now Thermo Fisher Scientific). It is well known for its third-party control capabilities. Call me biased but I am also convinced that Chromeleon is the best Chromatography data system around. Give it a try and I am sure you will love it, too.

Holger
--------
Thermo Fisher Scientific

[shoom]

Hi Shoom,
Please can you be more specific with your problems with Totalchrom? I've been using it for years (as well as Turbochrom) with no real problems other than the odd comms situation with HPLC with is never fatal. (We have a Lantronix box). I have PE GCs and HPLC for 10+ years and never had board/fan/bearing problems. I am aware though that Totalchrom might not be as popular as other software - but we have found it easy to navigate.
Regards
WK

The problem I/we have with totalchrom are numerous. For starters it/the instrument takes an age to respond to commands, unlike chemstation I cant just turn it on and monitor baselines ( I am having some noise problems at the moment and want to try different things) sometimes after the end of a run it just hangs there and wont let me view my chromatograms and/or it just says there is no data in the raw data files??!! There are no diagnostic tools unlike chemstation, which I need at the moment.

There ar other issues too regarding to general user friendlyness. Too many to mention.

[shoom]

You should also consider Chromeleon from Dionex (now Thermo Fisher Scientific). It is well known for its third-party control capabilities. Call me biased but I am also convinced that Chromeleon is the best Chromatography data system around. Give it a try and I am sure you will love it, too.

Holger
--------
Thermo Fisher Scientific

Can I get a demo/trial?

[Hfranz]

I am sure your local Thermo Fisher representatives are happy to show it to you. If you should need further support, just contact me directly.

Cheers,
Holger

[KarenJ]

I also recommend Chromeleon. We have 3 Dionex U3000 HPLCs which we really like. We have also used Chromeleon to control an Agilent HP1100 and an old Shimadzu. Works very well for routine control of instruments. A little frustrating for troubleshooting because you don't get full error descriptions. The data handling, integration, etc. is excellent. Right now I am pulling my hair out trying to learn how to do data handling with PE Total Chrome. As soon as possible, we are going to try to get Chromeleon software for our PE Clarus 580 also.

[DR]

Chromeleon would be a good way to go. T*C's lack of forward planning has pretty well shut it out of the C/S market going forward. Atlas' days are also numbered (it will be more or less rolled into Chromeleon before too much longer).

That said, the lack of speed you experience w/ T*C may be a function of your network setup and/or hardware to some extent. All data systems have their foibles that drive new users to distraction and swearing. After a while, you will be able to get T*C to turn cartwheels for you.

Personally, I preferred T*C to Chemstation, but I never had to deal w/ instrument control via T*C.

[KarenJ]

We have numerous problems with Total Chrome. The most important is the data handling after the analysis is complete. I have spent about 2 days just trying to process data from one 12-sample sequence. The integration, etc. are done in the graphics editor, then you define the calibration standards in the method editor, then you go to another place to reprocess, then yet another icon in the software to print out the results. That doesn't sound so bad, but each step generates new .rst files, the chromatograms look different each time you open them with no apparent pattern as to when or where your changes actually get saved, and then the final report has different results from anything seen on the screen. I can't believe that this software can be validated. I hope that you are right that eventually we will get used to this software and be able to do great things with it but after several months, we still can't figure out the correct data processing flow. We are able to muddle through the instrument control OK and get the instrument to analyze samples, but again this isn't straight forward. I have never seen a software package that doesn't have an instrument control page. I guess that they are assuming that you will do most instrument set up from either the front screen on the chromatograph or through method settings but it sure would be nice to just be able to set flow rates, etc. from one screen on the computer.

Sorry for all my ranting. I did appreciate your comments.

[yalamuripavan]

if you want third party control software then Clarity is the best option.

Regards
Pavan

[shaun78]

I can't believe that this software can be validated.

Don't worry; it can't be validated.

Several years ago I worked for a company that purchased the validation scripts from PE. PE's scripts, executed internally because they wanted something like $30,000 to simply execute the scripts.

I am very competent when it comes to software validation. I am also a chemist that has been performing method development and validation activities for the past 10+ years. The point being, I know how to validate software and how to use a CDS.

There was barely a validation script from PE that I did not have a significant deviation to. Some scripts required extensive modification of both PE and Windows *.ini files in order to get them to execute properly. The modification of these files then had to be reverted back to the original state otherwise other portions of the software would not function properly. Other scripts simply outright failed. Others could not be verified at all. Finally, a handful can not be executed as written otherwise they will fail; all techs know this, deviate from the script, and don't document it.

As a result of what I discovered from this, we started purchasing another manufacturer's equipment and CDS.

I really hate blatantly speaking badly about another company in this manner, but PE simply is not worth any amount of time you have to invest into their products.

Your comment about on-screen results and printed results being different makes me laugh; Or reprocessing generates different results. Can't tell you how many times that little problem drove me up a wall. Yeah, it's a real problem and it is not unique to you or your setup.

Someone here also mentioned about not being able to open a data file due to invalid data points. I can't tell you how many hours I spent on the phone with PE tech support trying to resolve this one. The bottom line is if a data file ends in odd number of data points, this causes some sort of magical catastrophic division by zero, which produces the invalid data point error. The "fix" is to simply add a fake data point to the file via a text editor ... or delete a data point from a file.

The lack of of speed with TCCS is mostly likely because, at the end of the day, all your communication is running through a telephony Lantronix terminal server, which uses a data rate of 9600 baud. It simply will not be fast; it can not be fast.