Tag Archives: hardware

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 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.