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Appendix 2: Q-Blue Program Commands
In addition to the controller commands of Appendix 1, Q-Blue provides the following functionality.
1. Enables generation of a temperature ramp at a user specified rate.
2. Maintains records of temperature as a function of time for the sample holder and for the
thermistor probe (and also for the reference holder for the dual controller). The time interval
between time/temperature entries is determined by the user.
3. Saves the time/temperature records to tab-delimited text files or copies the records to the
Windows clipboard.
4. Displays a plot of the time/temperature records singly or together (an example can be found in
Appendix 3). The plots can be copied to the Windows clipboard.
5. Has a setting that will notify the user that the holder temperature has been stable for a user
specified time. This is useful because the sample temperature always lags behind the holder
temperature. This capability is available only if the computer has a speaker.
6. Allows the user to send individual commands or short series of commands to the controller.
7. Permits the user to monitor all communications to and from the controller.
8. Enables the user to send a long series of commands by loading a text file (known as a controller
script) that can be easily generated in a text editor such as Windows Notepad.
9. Provides a number of program specific script commands to help manage execution of the script.
For example:
•
A command to delay a specified time before executing the next script command.
•
Various commands to wait for specified conditions such as holder temperature stability or the
completion of a temperature ramp. Once the condition is satisfied, script execution proceeds to
the next command.
The following list includes all of the program specific script commands for Q-Blue.
Delay and Wait commands
[*D #]
- Delay # INTERVALS before running the next command. Example: [*D 120] will cause a delay of 120 of
the INTERVAL units as defined in the first line of the script (see the example script in Appendix 3 where the
second line sets INTERVAL to 0.6 seconds or 0.01 minutes).
[*WRP>=#]
- Wait until the ramp parameter exceeds or equals a particular value (# as an integer).
[*WRP<=#]
- Wait until the ramp parameter decreases to or below a particular value (# as an integer).
[*WCT>=#]
- Wait until the current (holder) temperature exceeds or equals a particular value (# as an
integer).
[*WCT<=#]
- Wait until the current temperature decreases to or below a particular value (# as an integer).
The current temperature is the temperature of the metal body of the sample cuvette holder.
