Sciencemadness Discussion Board

CTC PAL Autosampler programming

pantone159 - 30-6-2010 at 07:04

I am doing some programming for the CTC PAL Autosampler. This machine/robot picks up samples, e.g. from a 96-well plate, and then puts them somewhere. Typically, 'somewhere' is a GC or HPLC injector, however we are putting them into another instrument.

Anyways, I want to program this thing with the low-level 'atom' commands via the serial port. Nobody wants to give us much information about this low-level stuff, either CTC or LEAP (the USA vendor for these), they want us to use LEAP's software component, which is an ActiveX component, which is troublesome for various reasons, and the component is also expensive.

I have one document, 'PAL Remote Control Commands', which does have some description of how this works, but I would like to find more if possible. Has anybody here ever done any programming of these things before?

Thanks in advance.

densest - 2-7-2010 at 20:30

There are a couple of things you can do. One, which is probably illegal in the USA - the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act & its loathsome companions) make it problematic - is to put a monitor/logger on the channel (serial port?) and capture the communications while exercising as many functions as you can. Or make a matrix of all the functions the sampler can do and match that against the matrix from the document you have and subtract - is there anything you want which is not documented?

I could take a quick look at the document you have if you want to pm me.

pantone159 - 3-7-2010 at 09:13

I already know everything going through the serial port! My code is explicitly sending all of it, and handles reading any responses. I think I am working out all that I will need, figuring out the gaps in the documentation via empirical experimentation, but it is always nicer to have a description of what is supposed to happen, instead of assuming that things will consistently work as I have observed them. Thanks for the advice though.

watson.fawkes - 3-7-2010 at 17:17

Quote: Originally posted by pantone159  
I already know everything going through the serial port! My code is explicitly sending all of it, and handles reading any responses. I think I am working out all that I will need, figuring out the gaps in the documentation via empirical experimentation, but it is always nicer to have a description of what is supposed to happen, instead of assuming that things will consistently work as I have observed them.
If you've already been reverse engineering the device, I suggest that you start a public discussion group somewhere about reverse engineering this particular device. That by itself won't do much, but if you publish a draft of your reversed specification, I would expect folks to start coming out of the woodwork to talk about it. Do make sure to name the group specifically enough that it can be found with keyword search.

As to the issue of reverse engineering and the DMCA, in short, you're fine. The DMCA only covers copyright-protection mechanisms, not reverse engineering in general. The only copyright that even might be at issue here is the firmware in the device. Since you're reverse engineering behavior, rather than object code, there's no copyright issue at all.

densest - 4-7-2010 at 12:41

@watson.fawkes - thanks for the clarification... yes, DMCA is about copy protection. Kodak sued (or threatened to sue) anyone who reverse engineered their PhotoCD format. There were/are a lot of FUD suits & threats of suits which use truly contorted logic to invoke DMCA and its like. If there were a special handshake between the computer and the machine that would be enough to get the suit started.... without merit, but truly annoying to the reverse engineering team.

The suggestions about public comment & participation are very good!

12AX7 - 6-7-2010 at 21:06

DMCA? Need$ $ome dollar$ign$!!...

Tim

simmsdk - 13-11-2011 at 08:39

I have the same problem, i want to control my CTC PAL via the serial port from my own program.

Any chance of a copy of the 'PAL Remote Control Commands' document ??