PiStar Stopped-Flow CD Pro-Data Upgrade

Overview

Current PiStar CD instruments are equipped with the Pro-Data software suite and associated electronics. This new software and electronics is now available as an upgrade for older PiStar models to provide greater experimental flexibility, user friendliness and reliability. More than just a simple software upgrade, the Pro-Data upgrade replaces the existing PLS based electronics rack with a compact new rack featuring all new electronics and PC interface. In short, it will transform your PiStar to operate with all the benefits of the latest PiStar model. The Pro-Data upgrade carries a 12-month warranty and is available now for modernising all existing Applied Photophysics PiStar instruments.

All-new modular electronics

The modular design of Pro-Data electronics is unique amongst stopped-flow instruments and offers our customers a solution that is future-proof because it can be upgraded and expanded, reliable because we have used modern design and manufacturing techniques and easy to support because of on-board self-test and diagnostics which will ensure rapid and accurate fault diagnosis.

• Future-proof . The rack into which the PCB modules are mounted can accommodate up to eleven cards in addition to the power supply modules. The basic configuration, which features multi-channel acquisition, KSHU and monochromator control, will use only six card slots. Emission monochromator, ESHU stirrer and photodiode array options require additional modules but this still leaves plenty of capacity for future expansion. The rack and modules are common to all Applied Photophysics stopped-flow (SX series) and CD (Chirascan) instruments ensuring PiStar develops apace the other instruments.

• Reliable . The electronics component count is minimized through the use of programmable logic devices (PLDs) and digital signal processors (DSPs) to ensure maximum reliability. All the boards are multi-layer boards using surface-mount components, which confer the benefit of simplifying the board layout and improving reliability. Every board has been designed for automated test as part of its manufacture, which again improves reliability by eliminating human error. The increased manufacturing volume of the common electronics architecture used on all the Applied Photophysics family of stopped-flow and CD instruments yields an improvement in reliability.

• Easy to support . Should a module fail, it can be identified and replaced very easily. Each module has its own on-board self-test procedure which is executed on start-up or can be initiated whenever required by the operator. This gives confidence that the electronics are performing correctly and makes it easy to carry out remote fault diagnosis, where the local operator runs a test that generates information that can be sent for interpretation to the technical support group at APL. In the unlikely event that a fault does develop, the faulty board would be replaced with a new one, which means that the repair is quick and simple, keeping disruption of your work to an absolute minimum.

Enhanced performance

The Pro-Data upgrade will enhance many aspects of the operation of your stopped-flow instrument and the speed and capability of modern electronics and software will transform its responsiveness particularly the communication between the instrument and the PC.

Multi-channel data acquisition is standard on the Pro-Data PiStar upgrade and each channel has its own dedicated 16-bit A/D converter which together with advanced features such as automatic gain control and 64-bit digital over-sampling are applied to ensure the highest precision and resolution for all measurements.

The optional accessories range benefits from improved photodiode array performance (reduced scanning period) and new accessories for linear dichroism measurement.

Powerful new network-ready PC running all-new software under Windows™ XP

The new Pro-Data PiStar Software is the interface for instrument control and experimental data acquisition. Pro-Data Viewer offers full display, analysis and filing controls for handling collected data. Much useful third-party software is available for Windows™ operating systems and direct exchange of PiStar data with third-party applications is straightforward. and aids the efficient use of the instrument.

Pro-Data permits direct export of multivariate data to our proprietary Pro-K for PC and Pro-KII global analysis applications. Pro-K for PC is supplied as standard with the Pro-Data stopped-flow upgrade and a fully functional trial version of Pro-KII is bundled with the software.

Pro-Data software is fully compatible with all existing files collected using the RISC-OS platform – such data can be read and analysed without problem using the Pro-Data Converter software.

Pro-Data has more flexible data acquisition modes than have previously been available. In kinetics mode, split time-base data acquisition is possible and slow kinetics are displayed and saved live during acquisition. Photo-diode array multi-wavelength acquisition is faster, with up to 1000 spectra per second now achievable and also benefits from the implementation of the split time-base feature. Simultaneous CD, absorbance and fluorescence data may be acquired as standard. In the steady state mode, CD scanning is enhanced with a fully functioning adaptive sampling option and collection of simultaneous absorbance and CD data. The temperature ramping mode now features additional control options including a constant ramping rate mode.

Pro-Data viewer provides the means of visualising and analysing data and can be installed as an independent program on any number of computers for portable data visualisation and analysis. It is straightforward to export from Pro-Data viewer both raw and fitted data in a format suitable for import to third-party programs. Likewise, publication quality traces can be cut and pasted directly from the viewer interface into such applications as Microsoft™ Word.

As standard, the Pro-Data upgrade enables fully automated acquisition of multiple-wavelength ‘Spectra-Kinetic' data sets, a collection of kinetic traces recorded at a number of selected wavelengths. The Pro-Data upgrade includes APL's proprietary global analysis software Pro-K for PC which enables the global analysis of these data sets. Such analysis yields more robust kinetic parameters and allows fitting to more complex reaction mechanisms than is possible with single wavelength data. It also yields the absorbance spectra of the reaction intermediates. A limited execution but fully functional copy of our world-beating second-order global analysis package Pro-KII , which globally analyses concentration-dependent, multi-wavelength data, is also included in the upgrade.

Pro-Data software may be loaded on multiple PCs to aid efficient remote handling of PiStar data.

The robust Pro-Data architecture is now common across most of APL's products, both for software and hardware. All future developments and improvements will be focused on Pro-Data , although all current configurations on the RISC-OS platform will continue to be supported.

Optical Performance Upgrade

The Pro-Data upgrade will undoubtedly revolutionize the operation of your PiStar instrument. However, in order to restore as-new optical performance to older PiStar instruments, several optical components should be considered for replacement. This is an ideal time to replace the lamp housing mirror and monochromator gratings whose optical surfaces have been deteriorated by prolonged exposure to UV light and ozone. This option is relatively cost effective for a gratings-based instrument such as the PiStar and is offered at significant discount when carried out at the same time as the Pro-Data upgrade. The Technical Support Department will be able to assess the condition of the PiStar optics via a simple test.

Pro-Data Users

The Pro-Data software is well established and reliable, with versions in use since 2003. A selection of some of the establishments currently benefiting from running the Pro-Data software is shown below. To add your establishment to the ever growing list, please contact the Technical Support Department (techsup@photophysics.com) for further information and a quotation.

Academia Sinica, Taiwan - Astra Zeneca - Bayer - Bristol Myers Squibb – Bristol University - Brookhaven National Laboratory - Burke Medical Research Institute - Cape Town University - Cardiff University - CEA, Grenoble - Chinese Academy of Sciences – Colorado State University - Diamond Light Source - Duke University - Durham University - ETH Honggerburg - ETH Zurich - Florida State University - Genentech - GlaxoSmithKline - Howard Hughes Medical Institute - Imperial College, London - Infinity Pharmaceuticals - Institute of Biochemistry, Moscow - Johns Hopkins - Kansas University – Kennesaw State University - Kings College, London - Kyoto University - Manchester University - Max Planck Institute, Dortmund - Max Planck Institute, Goettingen - Merck & Co - MIT - Michigan State University - Monash University - Montpellier University - Moscow State University - NIH, Bethesda - North Carolina State University - Novo Nordisk - Oak Ridge National Laboratory - Ohio State University - Osaka University - Oxford University - Penn State University - Portsmouth University - Queen Mary’s College, London - Rutgers University - Solvay Pharmaceuticals - Souka University - Technical University of Munich – Technical University of Kaiserslautern - Texas A&M University - Tottori University – UCB Celltech - Umea University - University of Alabama - University of Alberta - University of Basel - University of California San Diego - University of California Santa Cruz - University of Cambridge - University of Florida - University of Foggia - University of Frankfurt - University of Guelph - University of Halle - University of Kansas - University of Lisbon - University of Ljubljana - University of Medicine and Dentistry, New Jersey - University of Montana - University of Montreal - University of Otago - University of the Negev - University of Newcastle, Australia - University of Newcastle upon Tyne - University of North Carolina - University of Pennsylvania - University of Reading - University of Surrey - University of Sydney - University of Texas Medical Branch - University of Turin - University of Victoria, Canada - University of Washington, St Louis - University of Zaragoza - Uppsala University - Wayne State University - Weizmann Institute