This page contains hardware recommendations for the operation & control of noble gas (NG) preparation systems and their accessories.

Prep Line System Control

Although there exist some prebuilt vacuum sample preparation systems, with NG labs being so specialized the reality is most labs are building their own. NG labs will often utilize the same principles (cryogenics, heaters/ovens, valve actuation, process automation, etc), how they control these systems has largely been up to the operators and available technology. As electronics become cheaper and more compact, more options have begun to open up. Thanks to pythons vast library, Pychron is able to communicate and control just about any piece of hardware.

Recommendations

Programmable Logic Controller's (PLC). PLC's are industrial microprocessor-based controllers, that are easily programmed and can be equipped with multiple I/O modules. Developed in the 1960s to replace relay logic systems, these have seen wide spread use in many sectors where any sort of automotive control is required. Over the decades the size of these systems, ease of use and modularity has reached a point where they are a very cost effective solution for controlling a prep system.

Hardware Communication

Most scientific equipment (past and present) is usually outfitted with an RS-232 serial port. These are very straight forward, however most modern computers lack any true serial ports on the motherboard or chassis. Practical solutions would be an additional PCI card with serial or using a serial-USB cable and virtual COM ports.

More recent equipment is outfitted with USB, and although easy to plug in and natively communicate with, users may find themselves quickly running out of USB ports (even with additional hubs) or more commonly physically limited by cable length (requiring a signal repeater).

The optimal choice for hardware communication these days is the ethernet connection. These have slowly become adopted into just about every piece of modern scientific equipment (temperature controllers, residual gas analyzers, etc). Network switching equipment removes any physical limitations and places all hardware on a closed network. This has multiple advantages:

1. IT departments and/or internal policies often prohibit internet connectivity of equipment (and most often lack the enterprise level security to ensure a secure connection on wireless networks), allowing the central computer to access both the internet and the closed equipment network.
2. Makes available the connected equipment to any other computer or hardware also on the closed network. This can allow for direct connection between hardware without placing any load on the operators computer.
3. Integrating new equipment is fast and easy.

and lastly,

Ethernet communication is straight forward and easy to configure.

If hardware cannot be configured with a built in ethernet module, the best solution would be a USB extender over ethernet. Typical USB extenders are cumbersome and you may still find yourself limited by their range. Port forwarding serial servers are very expensive and often overkill for typical lab applications, and virtual port forwarding solutions are not always 100% reliable. A cheap USB-ethernet extender is the most cost effective and practical solution. This has been tested and does work with devices that use the USB form factor yet send and register as standard COM ports on computers.

[Device] - {USB | Ethernet Adapter} - [Ethernet Cable] - {Ethernet | USB Adapter} - Computer