Operation Manual. for the. Data Logging Software. Version 7.1. (Isoft.xls)

Transcription

1 for the Data Logging Software Version 7.1 (Isoft.xls) TetraTec Instruments GmbH

2 1 GENERAL HINTS 1.1 Typographical Conventions Displayment Means marks a work procedure, which you must implement references marks which you should not neglect otherwise your health or the operability of the equipment is endangered marks important additional information, hints and recommendations referring to precautionary measures mark during the handling of electrostatically unloading-endangered elements or modules. Typographic conventions Menue Items Texts of screen displays were shown in cursive letter (z.b.: End Program). Predefined Parameter Parameter which are set at the delivery of the unit as factory settings were underlined. (i.e.: ) 1.2 SAFTEY HINTS Please consider the references of this manual as well as the operating conditions and permissible data, which are specified in the data sheets of the device, so that the equipment functions perfectly and for a long time remains operational: Adhere with operational planning and the enterprise of the equipment to the general rules of the technology! Installation and maintenance work may take place only with technical personnel and with suitable tools! Consider the valid accident prevention and safety regulations for electrical devices during the enterprise and maintenance of the equipment! Switch off power supply before interferences into the system in any case! Apply suitable measures, in order to exclude unintentional operation or inadmissible impairment! After an interruption of the electrical supply ensure a defined and controlled restart of the process! Page 2/10

3 2 Contents 1 GENERAL HINTS Typographical Conventions SAFTEY HINTS CONTENTS INTRODUCTION SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS INSTALLATION AND START OF THE SOFTWARE THE ISOFT USER INTERFACE Automatic measurement data logging Setup conditions using parameters Printout Administrator login Mini Terminal HINTS FOR COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS...14 Page 3/10

4 3 Introduction The available program should be an aid for the user to start-up and record data which were created with measuring systems based on the controller S320 like the - LMF Laminar Master Flow System, - LMS Leakage Measurement System or - PCS Pressure Control System. The software is based on MS Excel and the VBA Visual basic for Applications. The VBA sources are open and can be changed by you. The provided driver file (tetracom.dll) manages the communication and data handling with the serial interfaces and allows the setting of precise time stamps. It can be used in the available form also for other applications, but the sources of it are not open. With the Isoft Tool we want to give users of S320 based systems suggestions for automated measurement data recording and to facilitate the entrance into own programming with VBA and Visual basic. We hope to have removed thereby for you the most difficult part of the communication and the time controlled data collection. Since the software is distributed as Freeware, we exclude any liability for damage appearing to plants or systems that might be caused by software. There is also no obligation for us to improve the software or eliminate errors especially concerning the execution and malfunctions of the Microsoft Windows and Office products. Gladly however we take up your suggestions and let your suggestions flow into the further developments of our software solutions. 4 System Requirements Windows 2000 or XP 20MB free disk space Office 2000 (full installation) and Service-Pack 3 5 Installation and Start of the Software On the installation disk, you will find five files: isoft_man_d.pdf isoft_man_e.pdf tetracom.dll register-isoft.vbs isoft.xls. Installation You will need Administrator rights Create a folder on your local hard disk and copy all files from the ISoft distribution into this folder. Page 4/10

5 Note: You are free to choose any name for the folder (e.g. Isoft ). However, the folder shouldn t be renamed after proceeding with the registration step described below, since renaming will invalidate data written to the Windows Registry. Start the file register-isoft.vbs once by double clicking on the icon. register-isoft.vbs is a visual basic script that will add the path to the file tetratcom.dll to the PATH environment variable.. This enables Windows to locate the DLL automatically. Restart the PC - or - Log off and on again. Start the program Open the file isoft.xls. Excel will start and the communication DLL will be loaded. You may see a dialog that asks if macros contained within the file should be activated. If this dialog appears, chose activate macros. Page 5/10

6 6 The Isoft user interface After program start the following program window will appear: The five functional units of the program are accessible using the tabs on the top (in the picture above, only four of the five tabs are visible see below for an explanation). If you have closed the Isoft window, in order to examine the tables, you can restart it at any time by clicking on the controller S320 button in the button bar. The following sections will describe the individual parts of Isoft. 6.1 Automatic measurement data logging This part of the program allows to retrieve up to six read parameters (R1-R6) in a timed fashion and stored within the program data space for further evaluation. Values read are scaled using the fields Gain and Offset. This feature can be used to convert the values to other units. Depending on the number of parameters, the connection speed and the speed of the PC that runs the Isoft program, you will be able to set the measurement interval to a minimum of 0.05 seconds. Whether the system is able to keep up with this interval can be controlled by activating Precise time stamps (see below). Page 6/10

7 The measurement period can be entered directly. Alternatively, the number of data points can be entered. In this case, the total measurement period is the product of the measurement interval and the number of data points. If only one parameter is to be read, the name of this parameter must be entered in the field R- Parameter R1. Other parameter fields must remain empty then. Right to each parameter field is an additional field for descriptions. The text entered here will also appear on the diagrams. This helps when interpreting the diagrams later. Data measurement logging is started by clicking Start recording or START & Rec. When clicking Start recording, only data measurement logging is started, but not the measurement on the Controller S320. To start measurement on the Controller S320 and logging within the Isoft program, select START & Rec. There may be situations were it doesn t make sense to start measurement on the Controller S320 together with data logging in Isoft. For a leak measurement system for example, it may be useful to just record the pressure after the fill phase. During recording the measured values are not stored directly in Excel. For speed reasons these are stored first into temporary file. If Excel and/or your operating system should fail during the recording and/or to be terminated, then all measured and recorded values are lost. The buttons in the Remote control panel are configurable in the Init sheet. Each button sends a configurable command to the Controller S320. Predefined commands are START, STOP, LEAK and ZERO, which resemble the standard buttons of a LMF device. The program running on the Controller S320 can be changed using the radio buttons in the Program panel. Depending on the state of the Switch program when rec. switch, the program change will either happen instantly, or when recording is started. Option switches The option Ignore pause time will cause Isoft to remove times when recording was paused from the result sheet. Precise timestamps means that the actual time instead of the target time for a data point is recorded. Differences between the target time and the actual time for a data point may be caused by the precision of the Windows timer functions, and by the speed of the PC running the Page 7/10

8 Isoft program. Depending on the state of this switch, target or actual time is used in the result sheet and diagrams. If Display remaining time is enabled, the number of remaining cycles is displayed while recording. When using older PCs with slow graphics hardware, the time for the display output may have an impact on the cycle time. In this case, it may be advisable to disable the option. To reset the measurement time or the number of measurement cycles to the start value once recording has finished, enable Reset when done. If this option is disabled, the values will by set to the remaining time resp. cycles. The option Switch program when rec. determines if a change of the program running on the controller happens instantly when one of the program radio buttons is selected, or delayed when recording is started. done and Ignore pause time. Clicking the Cancel button in the Measurement dialogue will terminate recording prematurely. The Pause button suspends recording. The behavior of both buttons is configurable using the option switches Reset when Printing recorded values and diagrams, or saving results to a file is possible using the buttons shown below: Save results will save the sheet Results and all diagrams into a new Excel file. Macros aren t transfered to this file. Using Print it is possible to print selected tables and diagrams. Print data is sent to the standard printer, which is defined in the Windows system settings. Page 8/10

9 6.2 Setup conditions using parameters When configuring the Controller S320, it is useful to be able to retrieve or change several parameters at once. This is possible on the Parameter sets tab of the Isoft program. The example below shows parameters for a LMF system: Up to 100 parameters for the Controller S320 may be entered in the Parameters panel, including values for these parameters and a description for documentation purposes. If a parameter name starts with Px (program parameter), the X will be replaced by the number of the program selected in the Program panel before sending this name to the Controller S320. The list of parameters can be cleared by clicking on the Clear all fields button. This may be useful when starting a new measurement task. The parameter list (including values and comments) is saved when the program is terminated and reloaded on the next program start. Page 9/10

10 Three different options are available to transfer parameters to and from a connected Controller S320. Using these options, it is possible to restore parameters for repeated measurements: The Temp button sends all parameters contained in the parameter list to the Controller S320, followed by a TEMP command. The TEMP command tells the controller so save the new parameters non permanently. The new settings will be lost when the Controller S320 is restarted. The Save button does also send all parameters to the Controller S320, but the parameter list is followed by a SAVE command instead of TEMP. This will save the new parameters permanently, overriding any old values for these parameters. Because using Save is inherently dangerous, the button is disabled when Administrator Mode is not active. Reading the current valus of the parameters in the parameter list is done using the Read parameters button. The values in the parameter list are replaced by the values read from the Controller S320. Beware! You have full access to all parameters! The Save command will overwrite the values for all parameters in the list. This change is permanent, the old values are lost. Using the Save command it is possible to overwrite system parameters including calibration values! Read the current parameter values from the Controller S320 before changing them, and save the these values into a file. This way it is possible to restore the old state in case something goes wrong. The complete parameter list, including values and descriptions can be exported into a separate Excel file using the Save button in the File panel. The Load button allows to read a previously saved parameter list from an Excel file. The parameters will show up in the forms parameter list after the load. Page 10/10

11 6.3 Printout The values of the input fields in the Printout tab are written into the Results sheet by the Isoft program, but ignored otherwise. They can be referenced when customizing the Printout sheet that is used as template when printing the results of a measurement. Page 11/10

12 6.4 Administrator login Part of the Isoft functions are only available by supplying a hard coded password: Entering the correct password and clicking on the Start button will enable Administrator Mode. In this mode, an additional tab named Mini Terminal is accessible. Additionally, the Save button on the Parameter sets tab be activated. Terminating Administrator Mode is possible by leaving the Isoft program, or by clicking the Done button. Page 12/10

13 6.5 Mini Terminal Using the Mini Terminal, it is possible to configure a Controller S320, or retrieve individual parameters. The Mini Terminal tab is only available in Administrator Mode. Using the Mini Terminal, all valid commands can be sent to the Controller S320. The button Send will send the text currently in the input field to the controller. The echo or result of the command is displayed. The most important commands are available as command buttons on the right side of the form to save some typing. Parameters for the connection to the Controller S320, including connection speed and handshake must be configured in the Init sheet. Page 13/10

14 7 Hints for Communication Problems If an error message appears "file not found: tetracom.dll ", the entry of the directory listing into the PATH Environment variable into the Windows Registry with isoft.vbs failed or the computer was possibly not rebooted again. The entry of the PATH Environment variable into the Windows Registry can be examined on the following way and accomplished also manually: On your PC Desktop is the symbol "workstation". Click with the mouse on the symbol and press the right mouse button. A selection menu appears whose last point is Properties. Open the Properties and a new window "system properties" appears. As last menu option you find the register map "extended". Click there on Environment Variables. It opens a further window "Environment Variable". There you should find the path entry: Path C:\Isoft, if the automatic registration did not fail. If you don t find it then you should press the button "New". It opens a further window "New User Variable". Enter there under "Name of the new variable" the word Path and under "Value of the new variable" the search path for tetracom.dll, e.g. to C:\Isoft, if you designated your file in such a way. Leave the windows through pressing of the Ok Buttons and your changes are stored. Now you should be able to start the file isoft60a.xls without an error message appearing. Now the control surface of the program should appear as described in point 3. If the standard Init settings of the program do not work with your controller, the error message appears "Communication error, write timeout". In this case you should close the Isoft window and in the table sheet "INIT" change the settings for communication and language for the program. Page 14/10