Windows 7: HASP key

The HASP software protection key (dongle) does not seem to work properly when I install the software on a Windows 7 system. What should I do?

The dongle drivers that used to be delivered with our software products are not compatible with Windows 7. The supplier has provided new drivers which we re-distribute on our website.

Please open the section ‘Support’ and select the page ‘Current driver of the HASP software protection key’. Here you can download a setup program which will install the latest driver version. This should work under Windows 7.

Class not registered

At start-up I get the message ‘Class not registered’. What does that mean?

Very likely this is due to a built-in ActiveX component which needs to be registered by Windows but isn’t. The registration is usually done by the setup routine of the software – in your case this obviously did not work-out all right.

The way to fix this problem is to manually register the component. On most computers you have to have administrator rights to do this. Start a Windows command line as administrator. The Start menu has a command line in the section ‘All programs’ and there in ‘Accessories’. With a right click on the menu item you get the option to run it as administrator.
In the command line, type in the command
regsvr32 “c:\program files\scout\vcf132.ocx”
which should be followed by a message of successful registration of the component. Please note that the path used in the command must be adapted to the location of your software.

In very rare cases it may happen that 2 or more software products register the file vcf132.ocx in different versions. In this case you should unregister all older versions of the component and work with the latest version only. You unregister an ActiveX component with a command like
regsvr32 “c:\program files\scout\vcf132.ocx” /U
where the specified path should be the installation path of your software.

Configure hardware

When I start the software, a strange dialog box named ‘Configure Hardware’ pops up. What’s wrong?

The dialog ‘Configure hardware’ is raised by a hardware driver (OceanOptics spectrometers) which cannot find its initialization file ooidrv.ini in the Windows directory.
The easiest way to avoid this is to set the second item of the dialog, the ‘A/D converter type) to ‘NONE’ and then quit the dialog with OK.

The setup routine should have copied a file named ooidrv.ini with proper settings to the Windows directory which obviously did not happen in your case.

 

New wafer object

 

With SPRAY version 2.53 we have introduced a new geometric object called ‘wafer’ which represents a silicon wafer to be used in a solar cell. The wafer has a cylindrical base shape and is cut at the sides:

wafer

The bottom surface is textured with shapes that have been available in previous versions of SPRAY already.

The top surface can be textured the same way or using a new mechanism: In order to approach realistic textures you can now superimpose two textures which may have different shapes and periodicities. This opens a large variety of surface patterns (see examples below).

“Uniform” pyramids

A surface texture of regular pyramids of one and the same size looks like this (for an inclination angle of 54°):

wafer_pyramids_54

The reflectance spectrum in the spectral range 400 … 800 nm is this:

wafer_pyramids_54_spectrum

Average reflectance is 13.8%.

“Non-uniform” pyramids

Big and small pyramids (with different heights and periodicities) mixed together:

wafer_pyramids_small_large

 

Reflectance of this texture:

wafer_pyramids_small_large_spectrum

Average in the range 400 … 800 nm: 13.2%

Big and medium sized pyramids mixed together – this looks quite realistic:

wafer_pyramids_medium_large

 

The reflectance of this kind of texture is this:

wafer_pyramids_medium_large_spectrum

Average reflectance: 13.0%

You may assign different layer stacks to the bottom, side and top surfaces of the wafer object. This way you can introduce AR coatings on top which are not deposited at the sides and below.

New hardware controllers

We have added some new hardware controllers which operate components used in optical setups. Together with the built-in spectrometer controls you can now automate optical measurements. All hardware controllers are objects in the list of spectrometers.

These are the new controllers:

  • WOSP shutter: Controls the motion of a servo motor through a TinkerForge servo brick. Can be used to control a mechanical shutter to block a light source. Or move something else …
  • WOSP traverse: Controls a stepper motor through a TinkerForge stepper brick. Can be used to control the motion of a traverse system driven by a stepper motor. Or some other kind of motion …
  • WOSP color sensor: Operates a TinkerForge color sensor for rapid measurements of brightness and color. This device does not record color coordinates L*, a* and b* correctly, but does rather rough measurements of RGB values. Very useful in combination with triggers (see below) …
  • WOSP camera: Connects to any webcam of your Windows system and shows the image in real time
  • MINT traverse: Controls the motion of a traverse system addressing a MINT controller.

In addition, objects called ‘WOSP triggers’ can automatically start scripts if a pre-defined condition becomes true. Triggers are used together with the automation timer. You can, for example, record a reflectance spectrum at each timer event. The average reflectance will be almost zero when there is no sample and higher once a sample is present. A trigger can now use the average reflectance value to verify the presence of a sample and execute a sample measurement with automatic saving of the recorded spectrum.