
MKS Instruments UK Ltd
Microvision2 Hardware Manual – SP101015.102 August 2010
26
7.3 Assigning a static IP Address
If you are connecting to a network where static IP addresses are used, or connecting directly to your PC or
MAC and wish to use fixed addressing, you will need to assign an address to the Microvision2
.
To help you understand this scenario, the following explanation may be of use:
You have your standalone or networked PC / MAC configured to use a fixed IP address, for example
192.168.0.1. When the Microvision2
is connected to the network, it will “ask” to be assigned an IP address
from a DHCP server, as one will not be present in this type of network, the Microvision2
will use a default
address in the range 169.254.xxx.xxx.
Because the host PC and Microvision2
are on entirely different IP ranges, communication between the two
is impossible. We must issue the Microvision2
with an IP address in the same range as the host PC.
You will need to ask for an IP address and Subnet from your IT Specialist if you are installing on a network.
This is done using the RGA Device Manager Application found on the supplied MKS Utilities CD. This
application does not require installation, but you will require administrative privileges to make changes to
the Windows Firewall exceptions for the application to function correctly.
The RGA Device Manager application is designed to locate and retrieve information from any MKS RGA
instrument, networked or otherwise. It does this by sending out a network broadcast, asking for information
from any MKS RGAs discovered. It matters not that the host PC / MAC may be on an entirely different IP
range than the Microvision2
. Once connected by RGA Device Manager we can assign a new IP address to
the Microvision2
.
Double-click the RGA Device Manager icon to start the application. After a few moments the following
dialog appears displaying a list of all discovered MKS RGA’s.
You can see that there is only
one RGA displayed in the
example, yours may contain
many entries.
Ensure you choose the
correct instrument from the
list.
You can see that Device Manager displays all the pertinent information on the RGA, of particular interest
are the “Address” and “Type” fields:
The “Address” field is the currently assigned IP address of the Microvision2
The “Type” field describes the scheme the Microvision2
is currently using to obtain an address.