BeanyCheese
Harmless
Posts: 2
Registered: 7-12-2011
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Bio-Rad FTS 6000
Hi guys,
I'm trying to get our old FTS 6000 IR spectrometer (Bio-Rad) to work again. I'm pretty sure that the spectrometer itself is working fine but I have
problems controlling it with Win-IR (version 4.04) and was wondering if you could maybe help me (though I’m not sure if this is the right section of
the forum). The software is installed on a computer running on Windows 3.1 which is connected to the spectrometer using an interface card.
Whenever I want to "talk" to the spectrometer, Win-IR gives me the same error message:
"The spectrometer OBE board is waiting for the second byte of a two byte command and has become unsynchronized with Win-IR.
Click OK to reset OBE board and try again."
Clicking on OK doesn't solve the problem; the error message just appears again after a few seconds. I have a second FTS 6000 which I'm using for spare
parts and it gives me the same error message.
Do you have any idea what the problem is? I was thinking that it might be a problem with the computer, card or cable as I keep getting the same error
for both spectrometers.
Any help from you would be much appreciated  Thanks a lot in advance!
|
|
|
hinz
Hazard to Others
Posts: 200
Registered: 29-10-2004
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Look below, there's a newer version of WinIR (4.14), which even works works without dongle and with an included manual IIRC but might have a few
missing files.
Then look a the Interface card and look whether you've set the interupts in WinIR correctly, the blue jumpers on the<a
href="http://img42.imageshack.us/i/p8140010.jpg/"> ISA card</a> must be the same interrupt as in the one set in the software.
Maybe try to install Win95 or Win98 and look if that fixes it or test the card in another old computer with Win9x/3.x
If it's a hardware based error, you've learn how the x86 CPU works, its assembly language and get a debugger like SoftICE and a logic analyzer. Then
you can look what data the computer sends to the ISA card and if there is a faulty component on it. IIRC there are some GALs on the card, the
predecessor of FPGAs. They're EEPROM based, so it might be that the MOSFET-gate of some of the EEPROMs got discharged over the last 20 years. The
yellow drop-shaped things on the card are tantal capacitors which also like to go bad, as it happened in a few of of my old tektronix oscilloscopes.
|
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
