integration of non beckman shaker

[charkey]

I want to integrate a non beckman shaker to my biomek fx. It uses rs-232 commands. How do I send the commands? Need to know how to add it to a method.

[bryan.daniels]

There isn't a direct way to send serial traffic to a device from Biomek without some coding and/or scripting. Your best bet is to contact your local sales person and ask about the "Integrated Solutions Developer's Kit". This may be what you need to integrate your shaker. The Developer's Kit includes documentation on some internals of Biomek and there are options to buy several hours of an Integrated Solutions software engineer's time to help with you integration. You may also find that this may be too complicated and you can also have Integrated Solutions make you a quote for them to integrate this shaker for you.

[charkey]

Are you talking about the Silas software?

[bryan.daniels]

I was originally meaning the Biomek Scripting Kit, but the Silas Developer's Kit would help you too. The latter would actually end up working better for you.

 

 

[alexm]

If you want to send plain ANSI ASCII commands to RS-232 serial port, then you can do it without any programming using Biomek FX Run Program step and batch files. ASCII commands are commands made of printable characters you can enter and see in a text file. For example Big Bear shakers use simple ANSI text commands. It is possible to implement binary commands using Unicode character set but I would not recommend doing it.

 

It takes you two steps to make it. One to make text file with the command and second to make batch file that will send that command to the serial port.

 

Here is how:

 

Open Notepad and type your command. If you want to end command with carriage return and line feed characters press Enter key at the end of the typed string. Save it as ANSI type text file. (example: oncommand.txt)

 

 

Now make the batch file. Open Notepad and type DOS copy command:

 

copy name or you previous text file COM1

 

where COM1 is serial port 1.

 

Example:

copy oncommand.txt COM2

sends content of oncommand.txt file to serial port 2.

 

Save this file as ANSI type with extension bat. This is your batch file. Both bat and text files should be in the same folder. To read or set com port parameters on your computer use MODE command. Click on Windows Start button in left lower corner, click on Run, enter cmd, and click OK. Now, you have DOS command window open. Type “help mode” and press Enter to see how to use mode command. If you need more information on DOS commands then google it.

 

In Biomek FX software use Run Step Command to run batch file and send the command to your shaker.

 

[charkey]

I should be getting my shaker today and will give it a go.

 

Do you have a Big Bear Automation shaker?

 

Cecil

 

 

 

 

If you want to send plain ANSI ASCII commands to RS-232 serial port, then you can do it without any programming using Biomek FX Run Program step and batch files. ASCII commands are commands made of printable characters you can enter and see in a text file. For example Big Bear shakers use simple ANSI text commands. It is possible to implement binary commands using Unicode character set but I would not recommend doing it.

 

It takes you two steps to make it. One to make text file with the command and second to make batch file that will send that command to the serial port.

 

Here is how:

 

Open Notepad and type your command. If you want to end command with carriage return and line feed characters press Enter key at the end of the typed string. Save it as ANSI type text file. (example: oncommand.txt)

Now make the batch file. Open Notepad and type DOS copy command:

 

copy name or you previous text file COM1

 

where COM1 is serial port 1.

 

Example:

copy oncommand.txt COM2

sends content of oncommand.txt file to serial port 2.

 

Save this file as ANSI type with extension bat. This is your batch file. Both bat and text files should be in the same folder. To read or set com port parameters on your computer use MODE command. Click on Windows Start button in left lower corner, click on Run, enter cmd, and click OK. Now, you have DOS command window open. Type “help mode” and press Enter to see how to use mode command. If you need more information on DOS commands then google it.

 

In Biomek FX software use Run Step Command to run batch file and send the command to your shaker.

 

[charkey]

Got the batch file to work. Only problem is that it runs the bat file but continues with the rest of the protocol before the shaking is over. What do I do?

 

[Doug_Becker]

There are three points of failure here, potentially. The first is that you didn't set the Run Program step to "Hold the resource until the program completes", or that your resource wasn't sufficient. For easy testing purposes, I'd recommend using the "Block all method activity", to rule those out. If that was the problem, then you can use "Hold the resource" and determine which resource is appropriate for you. It will likely be the position that you are using for the Big Bear, but you have a bit of lee-way there.

 

The other possibility is that your batch file isn't actually waiting for a response from the shaker to complete. You'll probably want to use the Mode command to wait for the shaker to respond that it is complete. Depending on the protocol, you may have to have the batch file wait 1 second repeatedly and "poll" (ask ) the device for completion.

 

Of course, other easy solution is to send the shake command, and then use the "pause" step to delay the position for 120 seconds, or whatever is appropriate. This will work, though, since you aren't talking to the device during the delay, you're not going to get errors back.

 

Doug

 

[guenthej]

Hi, All.

 

I just stumbled upon this topic while looking for a way to close applications using the Run Program step within the Biomek Software. The Biomek Software can't execute taskkill.exe directly, but it can use taskkill when run from a .bat file.

 

Here's the contents of the .bat file that I'm using to close SoftMax Pro and the SILAS module that controls it:

 

taskkill /IM SoftMaxProApp.exe /T /F >nul

taskkill /IM SoftMaxProModule.exe /T /F >nul

In the Run Program step, this option must be selected:

When the program is started:

Allow the method to continue independently