Lawson Labs, Inc.
800-321-5355 or 610 725-8800
FAX 610 725-9344
www.lawsonlabs.com
lawsnlab@lawsonlabs.com
                                                      5/26/2011

EMF16 Graphics Software for Win 98/NT/ME/2K/XP/Vista/Win7

A) Basic Operation Instructions

1) Start software and select COM port for EMF16 in lower left.
   Check the Device Manager under Ports if you are unsure which
   COM port number to use. USB to Serial converters will show
   there as well.  

2) Click the SignOn button to establish communication. The "RUN"
   LED on the EMF16 will light after successful initialization.

3) Define your data collection as described in section B, below.

4) Click Start Scan to begin and Stop Scan to end data collection.

B) Scan Set Up

1) Pick an internal data rate and remote averaging value. If you 
   are running long, slow tests, 10 Hz is the minimum rate. 10 Hz
   will also provide the lowest noise. For faster response, we
   recommend a 60 Hz internal data rate where the line frequency is 
   60 HZ, and a 50 Hz rate where the line frequency is 50 HZ. 

2) Remote averaging will increase the filtering, but will slow the 
   scanning rate. To get the smoothest data with the smallest data
   files, increase remote averaging to the largest value that will
   allow you to scan fast enough. See #4 below for scan rate. 

3) Click SETUP to change the selected active channels. The 16 input 
   channels for the standard EMF16 are shown in the left hand column.
   The selected active channels must be in a continuous sequence. 

NOTE: If your EMF16 has the RTD option, select the first subchannel on 
      the second input channel to activate the temperature readout. 

4) Scan types: 

  Normal scanning is a compromise between maximum speed and stability.
  It is often preferred for electrochemistry applications.

  Calibration scan adds two extra channels to each scan and
  corrects for offset drift. You may want to use some local
  averaging with a caibration scan to keep the offset correction
  from adding marginally to the noise. The offset drift is expected 
  to be less than 100 microvolts per degree C, so this correction 
  may be unnecessary in many applications. 

  Single-channel scanning allows much higher scan rates when sampling one 
  channel only. The scan must be stopped before a different individual
  channel can be selected.  

5) The minimum achievable scan interval will be selected if you click
   "Set to minimum interval". If you wish to scan more slowly, enter the 
   desired (larger) interval.

6) Click CLOSE to return to the graphics screen.   

C) Graphics Set Up

1) Up to 16 Channels can be plotted at the same time on the single
   set of axes.

2) Channels to plot can be selected from among the active sub-channels
   for any particular input channel. For the standard EMF16, the "MAIN" 
   channel should always be set to 1.

3) Adding or removing a channel from the plot does not change the 
   scanning sequence or the data logging files. It does change the
   Autoscaling. Left or right mouse buttons can be used when
   changing channels to graph. The left button will select or de-select
   intervening channels. The right button toggles only one channel at
   a time.

4) You can set the plus and minus full scale values by directly typing 
   the voltage desired and pressing Enter, or use Autoscale. The plus 
   full-scale value must be more positive than the Minus full-scale value.
   The horizontal axis timebase can also be changed directly in the same 
   fashion.

5) Click the Text Screen/Graph Screen button to toggle between the
   two presentations.

D) Offsets

1) Each EMF16 channel has its own small offset associated. To
   remove these offsets, begin a scan with all inputs active and
   electrically shorted using the plugs provided. Put the ground 
   switch in the SAFE position. After a few minutes, click 
   Save offsets. That will force all readings at that time to be 
   zero. 

2) Thereafter, those offset corrections will be stored and used
   each time you start your software. If you want to redo the
   offsets, with the terminators in place, click Save Offsets again. 

NOTICE: If you save offsets inadvertently, or with floating channels,
        subsequent data may be drastically shifted.

3) To permanently remove all saved software offset corrections, click 
   Reset Offsets.

E) Other Functions 
 
1) Check the LOG box to save data to disk. The Data files are placed in 
   the working directory and are named using the date and time. Click the
   box again to stop the data logging. A new file is created for each 
   Start Scan. Checking and unchecking the Log box during a scan will
   result in gaps in your log file. Note that the first column in the file 
   is the time stamp. 

2) Click Add Comment to insert text comments into your log files.

3) BAUD should normally be left at 4800. Serial errors can occur
   when using USB to Serial converters at 9600 BAUD. 

4) Gain can be set in powers of 2. The input range is cut in half
   for each increase in gain. Normal gain is 1 for a range of +/- 5 volts.
   A gain of 2 gives a range of +/- 2.5 volts, 4 gives +/- 1.25 volts, etc.
   Scanning must be stopped in order to change the gain.

5) Local Average is a running average calculated in the host computer.
   The average array is pre-loaded with the voltages from the first 
   scan. For large averaging values and/or wide scans, you may see a 
   message on your screen that indicates the arrays are being initialized. 
   The textual data on your screen, the graph, and the data files all
   reflect the averaged values.