Content Comparison

Green CCD Cold Head
Temperature Controller

1

Instec

mK2000

Aux Rack IP List

Red CCD Cold Head
Temperature Controller

1

Instec

mK2000

Aux Rack IP List

Green LN2 Pump

1

Instec

LN2-SYS

N/A

Red LN2 Pump

1

Instec

LN2-SYS

N/A

Read telemetry (Green)

Continuously running

Read telemetry (Red)

Operational Mode: Cold (Green)

Operational mode of CCD temperature maintained at cold temperature set point.

Operational Mode: Cold (Red)

Engineering Mode: Warm (Idle) (Green)

Engineering mode for idle case of warm CCD under no temperature control.

Engineering Mode: Warm (Idle) (Red)

Engineering Mode: Cool Down (Green)

Engineering and maintenance only. Controlled ramp of cold head temperature from warm to cold.

Engineering Mode: Cool Down (Red)

Engineering Mode: Warm Up (Green)

Engineering and maintenance only. Controlled ramp of cold head temperature from cold to warm.

Engineering Mode: Warm Up (Red)

Engineering Mode: Set PID (Green)

Engineering and maintenance only. Uploads a PID parameter table to the device.

Engineering Mode: Set PID (Red)

Green Channel Instec

Build

Observing

Maintenance

Green PID Parameters

YES

NO

MAYBE

Instec app can save PID parameters to a .csv file. Likely convenient to use same format. Used with this command:

TEMP:SPID

Verified with this command:

TEMP:GPID

Green Heating/cooling status

YES

NO

MAYBE

Values: 0=Heating Only, 1=Heating and Cooling, 2=Cooling Only

Change between different modes with

TEMP:CHSW

command.

Green Cold Temperature Set Point

YES

NO

MAYBE

Temperature in degrees C.

Used for the following commands:

TEMP:HOLD

TEMP:RAMP

Green Warm Temperature Set Point

YES

NO

MAYBE

Temperature in degrees C.

Used for the following commands:

TEMP:HOLD
TEMP:RAMP

Green Cool-down Rate

YES

NO

MAYBE

Temperature change rate of degrees C per minute.

Note this value is positive-only and the mK2000 infers the direction based on current and desired temperature.

Used for the RAMP command:

TEMP:RAMP

Green Warm-up Rate

YES

NO

MAYBE

Temperature change rate of degrees C per minute

Note this value is positive-only and the mK2000 infers the direction based on current and desired temperature.

Used for the RAMP command:

TEMP:RAMP

Green Power Percentage Value

YES

NO

MAYBE

Power setting in percent.

NOTE: the power percentage value on the Instec screen is in percent. However, power values passed through software are ratios. i.e., to set power to 5% the command would be:

TEMP:RPP 0.05

and a following query

TEMP:POW?

would return 0.050. Screen would say 5%.

Suggest using ‘units’ of percent for this variable to match display screen; and have software convert it to a ratio behind the scenes for commanding the Instec.

Red Channel Instec

Build

Observing

Maintenance

Red PID Parameters

YES

NO

MAYBE

See notes above for Green counterpart.

Red Heating/cooling status

YES

NO

MAYBE

See notes above for Green counterpart.

Red Cold Temperature Set Point

YES

NO

MAYBE

Temperature in degrees C.

See notes above for Green counterpart.

Red Warm Temperature Set Point

YES

NO

MAYBE

Temperature in degrees C.

See notes above for Green counterpart.

Red Cool-down Rate

YES

NO

MAYBE

Temperature change rate of degrees C per minute.

See notes above for Green counterpart.

Red Warm-up Rate

YES

NO

MAYBE

Temperature change rate of degrees C per minute

See notes above for Green counterpart.

Red Power Percentage Value

YES

NO

MAYBE

Power setting in percent.

See notes above for Green counterpart.

Cold Head Temperature Value Low (Green)

Cold Head Temperature Value High (Green)

Cold Head Temperature Value Low (Red)

Cold Head Temperature Value High (Red)

Instec said: “While we do have sample code for Python, it is based on a USB connection, not Ethernet. 

Our documentation on Ethernet programming is limited because it isn’t very frequently used for custom applications.

This ZIP file contains example code for python using a USB connection. It could serve as the basis for an ethernet version.”

email from Instec

Ethernet communication setup from Instec.

Mainly describes how to write code to find Instec devices on a network.

Note PacketSender image within, which shows correct port to use for ethernet communication.

email from Instec

PacketSender connection example

Screengrab of SG’s successful connection to device through PacketSender. Note port is 50292.

Instec App for Windows
(standalone program; not useful for KTL but included here for completeness)

email from Instec

Steve’s python code that uploads a PID table from a .csv file (in Instec format) to the device over USB.

Example PID tables also included (one with actual values, and one with integers that was useful for testing code).

Code:

PID files:

Steve’s test of parsing and uploading Instec .csv file

Calibration table decoder ring
(output of CAL:TAB command)

The data is formatted as follows:

The return data is 171 bytes long.

The first byte is “#”, while the last two bytes are the “return” (0x0D) and “New line” (0x0A) characters.

The 6^th byte describes the data type; 0 = TM, 1 = Calibration Table C1, 4 = Calibration Table C4 etc…

The 7^th byte is the number of entries in the calibration table.

The actual calibration data begins at the 10^th byte. For each in the calibration table, there are two floating point numbers which correspond to T0 and Ts.

Each floating point number consists of 4 bytes, which are arranged in little endian order.

email from Instec

Calibration file example.

Filename structure is:

“cold_head_SN & mK2000B_SN cal.clb”