B&W-tech Spectrometer & 473 module: Setup+Mods+Info

[diber]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Which version of the Spectrum Studio software... the one currently on the website of science-surplus ot the one of the rar package of chloderic above? Did it detect the spectrometer (if it doesn’t, it mentions so)? If it detects the spectrometer, but does not show the spectrum, it could indeed be the calibration (mine had all coefficients set to 0, which prevents the spectrum to be shown). Quick fix: push the tools button and fill in 0 for c0 and 1 for c1. It wil then show your spectrum with pixel numbers instead of wavelength. Use this view to determine the pixel number for known wavelengths (calibration sources) and use the best fit tab in the toolbox to calculate the calibration coefficients. Bottom line: if spectrum studio detects your spectrometer, you are very close. If not: driver, cable, rs232 converter ?

 

[chloderic]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Chloderic, thanks for the link. Unfortunately the program does not want to run on my PC (crashes without error message). Any chance you can figure out the protocol (do you have any means to spy on the serial communications between the program and the unit ?)

...not today .... sorry .... maybe at the weekend or so, but here a screenshot of the prgm and the dir with all needed files. Did you unpack all the files ?

 

[paul1598419]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Which version of the Spectrum Studio software... the one currently on the website of science-surplus ot the one of the rar package of chloderic above? Did it detect the spectrometer (if it doesn’t, it mentions so)? If it detects the spectrometer, but does not show the spectrum, it could indeed be the calibration (mine had all coefficients set to 0, which prevents the spectrum to be shown). Quick fix: push the tools button and fill in 0 for c0 and 1 for c1. It wil then show your spectrum with pixel numbers instead of wavelength. Use this view to determine the pixel number for known wavelengths (calibration sources) and use the best fit tab in the toolbox to calculate the calibration coefficients. Bottom line: if spectrum studio detects your spectrometer, you are very close. If not: driver, cable, rs232 converter ?

Thanks. This is exactly what I've been dealing with. It detects the spectrometer, but doesn't show more than the graph spread out over many fields of data lines. I can scroll through them, but don't get any pixels shown or a base line. Sounds very much like what you described.

 

[diber]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

...not today .... sorry .... maybe at the weekend or so, but here a screenshot of the prgm and the dir with all needed files. Did you unpack all the files ?

Yes, these are indeed the files I have unpacked. Tried it first on a mac with wine, but it was complaining it could not load the national instrument files. Then tried it on a Windows 7 machine and it just complains that it could not be started and was asking me if microsoft should look for a solution. Spectrum Studio (new version) is running fine on that machine.

 

[chloderic]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Yes, these are indeed the files I have unpacked. Tried it first on a mac with wine, but it was complaining it could not load the national instrument files. Then tried it on a Windows 7 machine and it just complains that it could not be started and was asking me if microsoft should look for a solution. Spectrum Studio (new version) is running fine on that machine.

ok, i am using win 10 / 64 bit in the the newest version, but that can not be the reason.

May that helps you ... I entered datas, see first pic, than "write parameters to Spectrometer"-Button, after confirming a view times i got a confirming message, see pic 2.

C1"md?AE8?
ACK


C2?Yt?K?~X
ACK


C3 " )?
ACK


Coefficients successfully written.
Your new coefficients are 387.9, 0.1862, -2.879E-05, and 5.691E-11
Serial Number 2
First Pixel 0; Last Pixel 2047

 

[chloderic]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Chloderic, thanks for the link. Unfortunately the program does not want to run on my PC (crashes without error message). Any chance you can figure out the protocol (do you have any means to spy on the serial communications between the program and the unit ?)

I currently have no port sniffer installed, which would you recommend?

 

[diachi]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

I currently have no port sniffer installed, which would you recommend?

Actually curious about that too, for another project...

 

[diber]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

I currently have no port sniffer installed, which would you recommend?

Thanks Chloderic about the screenshots from your program! It does provide one step in the good direction: the commands to use are C0 C1 C2 and C3, which are not documented in the protocol described in the help file of Spectrum Studio.

I have no experience with SW sniffers running on the same computer as the program. No recommendation from my side for such software. However, I do sometimes make a "break-out" between the USB-serial connector and an equipment (i.e. connect with 3 wires the ground pins, the TX and RX pins) and then listen in with a second USB to serial converter in the communications (to listen to the PC, connect the RX pin of the "spy" to the TX from the PC. In order to listen to the spectrometer, connect to the Rx of the spy to the Rx from the PC). Observing both directions at the same time would require a second spy cable. Pin allocation is on the first page of this thread. I use a standard serial terminal program to look at the data exchange (I use cutecom on linux).

I did this after your mail with the spectrometer and can see that Spectrum Studio first commands a reboot (Q - command using 9600 baud rate), requests the baud rate (?K) and then changes the baud rate to 115200 (K command). After this, it does send the ?C command, which I assume is reading back the calibration coefficients from the spectrometer. So far I cannot make sense yet from the response of the spectrometer. I did notice that the new version of Spectrum Studio is NOT sending any C0 C1... commands when changing the calibration coefficients in the software. It seems it is just storing the coefficients on the pc and does not attempt to program them in the spectrometer memory, neither is it requesting any parameter when pressing the "Reset to factory" button (possibly it stores the values at startup when sending the ?C command). Trying to send manually random values to the spectrometer did not make any change. I suppose the format needs to be correct (possibly even a checksum ?). I really hope I (or anyone else) can figure out the format of the C0, C1... commands... it would be really helpful to get the parameters in the spectrometer memory, especially since I am using more than one spectrometer.

 

[paul1598419]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

I was able to get the Spectrum Studio to accept a preliminary calibration, and with the filter removed, the one I have been experimenting with seems to have greater range than I expected. Maybe from 430nm to 650nm. I have a lot more work to do with this before I can call it good enough to use. Unfortunately, I have other projects that are keeping me away from doing more now.

 

[chloderic]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

It seems it is just storing the coefficients on the pc and does not attempt to program them in the spectrometer memory, neither is it requesting any parameter when pressing the "Reset to factory" button (possibly it stores the values at startup when sending the ?C command). Trying to send manually random values to the spectrometer did not make any change. I suppose the format needs to be correct (possibly even a checksum ?). I really hope I (or anyone else) can figure out the format of the C0, C1... commands... it would be really helpful to get the parameters in the spectrometer memory, especially since I am using more than one spectrometer.

Hi, i have 6 of these devices and 3 of them calibrated und written the coef. and an individual serial-number to the prom. Spectrum-studio recognizes these individual datas very well.... I will have a look in the differt VI i have collected ....maybe i find the commands inside ....
I guess science surplus remove the flashing feature out of their program-package, because it is their knowhow and i had luck to find an old package ...

 

[chloderic]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Yes, these are indeed the files I have unpacked. Tried it first on a mac with wine, but it was complaining it could not load the national instrument files. Then tried it on a Windows 7 machine and it just complains that it could not be started and was asking me if microsoft should look for a solution. Spectrum Studio (new version) is running fine on that machine.

To this i have an idea or question, did you install first the spectrum studio at this other pc with win 7 ? I guess, that the dll coming with the installation of spectrum studio (and than in the registry) will be needed for the calibrationtool too.

 

[diber]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

To this i have an idea or question, did you install first the spectrum studio at this other pc with win 7 ? I guess, that the dll coming with the installation of spectrum studio (and than in the registry) will be needed for the calibrationtool too.

Thanks for the suggestion, but it is not fully clear to me what I can do. I have the latest version of Spectrum Studio installed on that PC. In the RAR you provided, there are the exe's (together with all the supporting files such as the dll's), not an installer... it could thus well be that the registry is not OK.

When I execute the SpectrumStudioMDI.exe from your RAR file, the program runs without a problem. When I run the SetCoefficients.exe, I just get the error window stating that SetCoefficients has stopped working (Windows is checking for a solution... which it does not find). Same behaviour after uninstalling the new Spectrum Studio.

 

[chloderic]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Thanks for the suggestion, but it is not fully clear to me what I can do. I have the latest version of Spectrum Studio installed on that PC. In the RAR you provided, there are the exe's (together with all the supporting files such as the dll's), not an installer... it could thus well be that the registry is not OK.

When I execute the SpectrumStudioMDI.exe from your RAR file, the program runs without a problem. When I run the SetCoefficients.exe, I just get the error window stating that SetCoefficients has stopped working (Windows is checking for a solution... which it does not find). Same behaviour after uninstalling the new Spectrum Studio.

Is this the installed version ?

 

[diber]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Is this the installed version ?

Yes, that is the version I called the "new one" (did not realize it was actually so old ;-) which was first installed and then I de-installed. The version in the rar file is 1.2 and can run as well, although it does not detect the spectrometer.

 

[diber]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

I tried the SetCoefficients on a Windows 10 computer with the same (unsuccessful) result.

 

[Mosc007]

Re: B&Wtech 473nm unit / Spectrometer Mods & Info

Yes, that is the version I called the "new one" (did not realize it was actually so old ;-) which was first installed and then I de-installed. The version in the rar file is 1.2 and can run as well, although it does not detect the spectrometer.

Spectrum Studio will only work with Spectrum Analysers sold by the Spectrum Studio authors.

The BW Tech units found on Ebay will not be detected. You can use the Free software that I wrote and seems to work well with the Ebay Units.