Need to control HP 5890 GC through serial connection--but Agilent doesn't provide programmer's manual

[TimChem]

Hi,

I work for a university. We have 4 Hewlett-Packard gas chromatographs (GC) that use an old bipolar serial connection called INET. I can upgrade the GC to RS-232, but I need to know the control codes for the GC. Normally, these codes would have been found in a programmer's manual. I've contacted Agilent, but they no longer support these instruments. I'm lost at this point and would like any suggestions you might have.

Best,

Tim

[ArchivedPointOnePa]

TimChem wrote:
> Hi,   I work for a university. We have 4 Hewlett-Packard gas
> chromatographs (GC) that use an old bipolar serial connection called
> INET. I can upgrade the GC to RS-232, but I need to know the control
> codes for the GC. Normally, these codes would have been found in a
> programmer's manual. I've contacted Agilent, but they no longer
> support these instruments. I'm lost at this point and would like any
> suggestions you might have.   Best, Tim

Agilent should have the materials, but they just want you to buy something.
Check out this URL. He can probably help you out.

http://www.willstein.com/Resources

Or you can buy a complete set of manuals on Ebay for about $12 including shipping
http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-5890-Series-II-Gas-Chromatograph-Manuals_W0QQitemZ170150695745QQcmdZViewItem

This is a complete set of HP manuals for the 5890 Series II Gas Chromatographs, include users, service and option manuals. They are in PDF format on a CDR CD. Also included is the acrobat reader program for printing, reading and searching the manuals. Here is a list of the manuals you are getting:

* 5890 Series II and Series II Plus Operating Manual - HP P/N 05890-90261 - 7.5mb
* 5890 Series II Service Manual - HP P/N 05890-90320 - 4.5mb
* 5890 Series II and II Plus - Tutorial - HP P/N 05890-90291 - 700kb
* 5890 Series II and II Plus - Reference Manual - HP P/N 05890-90271 - 2.1mb
* 5890 Series II - Maintenance and Troubleshooting - Manual and Automatic Injectors - 500kb
* 5890 Series II - Troubleshooting EPC Split/Splitless Inlet Problems - HP P/N 05890 - 54kb
* 5890 Series II - Rotary Valves - Installation Guide - HP P/N G2739-90107 - 1.7mb
* 5890 Series II and II Plus - Site Prep/Installation Manual - HP P/N 05890-90281 - 550kb
* 5890 Series II - Quick Reference Cards - 400kb
* 7673 Automatic Liquid Sampler - Operating Manual - HP P/N G1513-90107 - 2.7mb
* 7673 Quick Reference Guide for Troubleshooting Autosampler Errors - 50kb
* Adobe Acrobat Reader - utility for reading, printing and searching the above manuals

[Dennis_Knutson]

You should also refer to the Instrument Driver Network. If you had done a search there, you would have found a link to a driver here. With this and if you can get a copy of the manuals, you should be all set.

[arctic_samurai]

Hi, 

I am wondering if you solved this problem. I also need to cntrol an HP 5890. It has both an RS-232 and HPIB connection.

[nyc_(is_out_of_here)]

---

@arctic_samurai wrote:

Hi, 

I am wondering if you solved this problem. I also need to cntrol an HP 5890. It has both an RS-232 and HPIB connection.

---

Did you bother reading any of the information in the post by Dennis K????

[arctic_samurai]

Yes I did a search for a HP 5890 in the instrument driver page but there was none. I also looked at the earlier response from pointonpa and looked at http://www.willstein.com/Resources but couldn't get the VI's from that site to run as there are a lot of missing VIs.

[arctic_samurai]

I also looked at the Cornell downloadable GC program and sent a message to the program developer, but I just thought to drop a message to TimChem in case he developed his own labview program.

[Ever_Song]

Hi arctic_samurai,

It looks like the 5890 is supported and maintained by a third party, and that it has not been updated in a while. The link Dennis provided (also found on NI’s driver page for the instrument under the ‘Required Third-Party Installation(s)’) has links to a LabVIEW 8.2 version of the executable as well as the source code library. There does not seem to be a LabVIEW 2010 version, but the 8.2 version opens in LabVIEW 2011 SP1.

If this does not work, you might want to try communicating with the instrument using VISA commands.

[arctic_samurai]

Hi, it's been awhile since I tried to communicate with the GC HP5890 with the GC. I used the labview software from cornell but kept on getting an error message in the start up saying

"Sent Message OTRQ

Received Unexpected Reply"

The GC is equipped with a board tha has a GPIB and Serial connection. I made sure that I have a null serial cable and that the GC is set to 19200 Baud rate. I also changed the firmware to HP5890A mode.

I also attempted to communicate with the GC using the labview basic serial read write visa program. I received an error message as well 

I can't figure out what the problem is.

I used a one of those RS232 boxes (Four-Stat Model T-702 RS232 Tester) to check is my serial cable is working and is the GC and computer are giving data outputs. The only thing I''ve figured out so far is that the GC is giving a data output in pin 2 but it is not giving a request to send output in pin 4. The PC is giving a data output signal in pin 3 and a clear to send (pin 5) and data set ready output (pin6).

Is it possible that the error occurs because the PC is waiting for a request to send signal that the GC is not sending? If so, how can I go about fixing this.

I hope someone would be able to help me with this problem.

Thank you so much for all the people who replied so far.

[photodread]

I hope you solved the problem, but if you r still working on it then keep in mind that you need only pins 2 and 3 on either side. Pin 5 is the ground. Make sure that pin 2 on device side is connected to pin 3 on  PC port. And pin 3 on device is connected to pin 3 at the port. Basically, the should cross so that sent data from device is hooked to receive pin at PC, and vice versa. The LabView driver from Cornell should work then, but you may need to debug small things: for example, makes sure that GetWorkFile procedure returns the right data. Good luck.