Clarity discussion forum

Do you have any information on the configuration necessary to control the ISCO Foxy 200 fraction collector using digital outputs and the FC-GP module? It doesn't seem to support the simple collect/waste and next tube commands that I'm used to. I've read through the manual and found information about using ttl signals to restart a run, which could be used to initiate fraction collection, but nothing on a way to instruct the fraction collector to change tubes.

Scott Horn

My apologies. Immediately after posting this I found the necessary information at the end of the FC-GP manual. Please feel free to delete this post as well as my previous one.

Scott Horn

No problem with that, I will leave the thread for other users who could probably face the same problem.
Best Regards,
Daniel

I have an update to this thread. It turns out that the method described in the FC GP manual for the FOXY JR, R1, and R2 doesn't work for the FOXY 200. The FOXY 200 is listed in the "Clarity Controls" list of controlled instruments however. It turns out that it is possible to control the FOXY 200. A db9 - db25 null modem cable is necessary. Instead of the simple "DRAIN" and "COLLECT", etc commands, the FOXY 200 uses a communication protocol known as DASnet, which is described in the FOXY 200 manual. It is therefore necessary to send each command as a frame containing the ID # of the instrument which is to recieve the command (this can be set on the fraction collector itself), the ID # of the device sending the command (usually 0), the length of the command, and a modulo 256 checksum for the entire string. I believe the sendcom utility would work for sending these commands to a serial port, but I used individual batch files for each command instead. An Excel spreadsheet for generating the necessary checksums from the command string can be found at this link: http://wiki.picbasic.org/index.php?n=Pl ... mGenerator . I just wanted to post this here to save anyone else attempting to control this device the trouble of figuring this out.
Thanks
Scott Horn

Dear Scott,
thank you for the information, we didn't have the Foxy 200 fraction collector at our disposal so we couldn't test the control. Your info is very helpful and I will repair the FC GP manual to match it.

As a side note, is there any chance you have the Foxy 200 manual at your disposal? I would be very interested in its contents, because then I may be able to create the dedicated driver for it for the next Clarity release. If you do, please send me the pdf with the relevant part (communication protocol) to support@dataapex.com .

Have you had a chance to work on a driver for the Foxy 200 Fraction Collector? If so, I'd be glad to help you test it out.

I've recently set up another Foxy 200 on a Clarity station using batch files called from the event table to send commands over the serial port. It works, but a problem sometimes occurs with the waste command sent by the FC GP module. For example, if I'm running a method with multiple collection windows, at the end of each window the FC GP module sends a "next" command immediately followed by a "waste" command. These two commands occur during the same second on the audit trail, and the lines representing them on the chromatogram totally overlap. Sometimes both commands are received fine, the tube number increments by 1and the arm moves to the drain position. However, sometimes it appears that the FC doesn't receive the waste command, so it advances by 1 tube and continues to drip into that tube until the next collection window starts, at which point it resumes normal operation. Is there a way to insert a delay between these two commands in the FC GP module? The reason I ask about a driver is because it could allow for an easy way to verify that each command is received. I'm not skilled enough with batch files or sendcom to establish 2-way communication with the FC.

Dear Scott,
we have prepared a more complex fraction collector control using UNI Ruby scripts for the next version of Clarity, scheduled on next week as Beta. We will be glad if you could help us test the Foxy 200 driver as we do not have a unit of this one here for our internal testing. The module uses bidirectional communication and it has an option to insert delay between commands. I will get back to you once Clarity 4.0 beta is out.

Best Regards,
Daniel

I am also setting up a Foxy 200 and would like to test your beta. Please let me know when it is available.

Karl