Information • Textbooks • Media • Resources
Computer Bulletin Board
Data Acquisition and Instrument Control via a Web Page Using Linux
W
C. Renée James Department of Physics, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX 77341 Michael P. McCann* Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL 60439; *
[email protected] Using the Linux operating system and a relatively inexpensive data acquisition board, interaction with two devices— a stepper motor and a thermometer—via a Web page is demonstrated. Further work is anticipated but ultimately this would allow students to operate instruments while standing next to the instrument or from a remote location. Students who go on to work in a LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System) environment should find this experience valuable. Another purpose motivating this study is the demonstration of the Linux operating system capabilities. This operating system is freely available, which means that copies may be legally put on any computer, providing a substantial savings to most education institutions. The typical Linux distribution comes not only with the operating system but a great deal of other freely available software such as compilers, server daemons, text editors, graphics manipulation software: a sample of the 700–800 MB of software applications included. This article demonstrates that Linux can do work that is useful to a chemist such as taking data from an instrument. For academicians on a budget, this article shows how life can be put back into some old instruments. The work employed a power supply from an old computer and a step-
per motor from an old dot-matrix printer. Using the techniques demonstrated in this article, one could take an old UV–vis spectrophotometer whose output goes to a strip chart recorder and make it an instrument that operates via the Web and provides a data file that can further be manipulated by the software of the student’s choice. One data acquisition board could possibly operate eight or more instruments. The authors plan to revitalize an old UV–vis spectrophotometer in this manner. Currently most instrument manufacturers write their own proprietary software and interface. We would like to recommend creating an interactive HTML page as a standard interface for all instruments. The software could still be proprietary but it would be convenient to have the same sort of interface from instrument to instrument. If the interface is via a Web page, there is the added bonus that the instrument could be remotely operated or monitored. W
Supplemental Material
Detailed information about the Web-controlled stepper motor and Web-recorded temperature measurements using the Linux system are available in this issue of JCE Online.
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 80 No. 2 February 2003 • Journal of Chemical Education
221
