The NE-500 plugin does not work with new NE-500 pumps

Support
1

Hi guys,

I am facing an severe issue with the last four NE-500 pumps that I purchased.

Basically, the NE-500 MW plugin appears to fail at driving reliably these pumps. What happens is that the pumps will run (when commanded to do so) only about 50% of the time, in a totally random way, with no clear pattern that could potentially predict when they fail or succeed. This is happening with all the four new pumps I got. I purchased two of them back in April 2010 and other two in June 2011 (but I tried all four of them only a few days ago). The funny things is that these new pumps run unreliably only when commanded through the MW plugin, but they work just fine when I send manual commands form telnet.

12 pumps that I purchased in 2009 works just fine (I’ll call these the “old” pumps)…

I discovered this problem when I tried to setup a new rig, using, for the first time, MW 4.5. When things did not work at first I thought about a problem with the NE-500 plugin in MW 4.5. But then I tried different things that all convinced me that the problem is with the pumps:

  1. I used the same Mac with the installed MW 4.5 to drive a pair of old pumps and new pumps. It worked with no troubles with the old pumps but it failed with the new ones.

  2. I used the same Mac with the installed the older MW 4.4 to drive a pair of old pumps and new pumps. Same as above.

  3. I tried various Startech serial bridges, but this did not change the outcome.

Not being able to find a better explanation, I reached the conclusion that New Era must have made some change either to the hardware or, most likely, to the software (perhaps changing/updating the firmware). A tech at New Era confirmed that they do update periodically the firmware but I am waiting for further details from him.

So, I was wondering. Assuming that New Era updated the firmware, will you guys be willing to modify the MW NE-500 plugin accordingly, or would it be too much trouble? I think that many people use these pumps now in different labs, so I believe that this may soon become a common issue if anybody purchases any new pump.

If you need, I can attach the reports of the communication with the pumps that the MW server console is spinning out.

Thanks
davide

2

Hi,

I am attaching 2 pdf files.

The first shows the version of the version in the two sets of pumps (the old ones, which are working and the new ones which are not). As you can see the firmware is different in the two sets.

The second file shows the reports that MW is spinning out when the pumps (both the new and old set) are commanded to run.

I have sent both files to Barry Cowen (the tech at New Era Syringe Pumps) and I am waiting for his comments/reply.

davide

3

Attachments:

4

Hi,

I am reporting below the comment of Barry to the file I have sent him (named “All_pumps_status.pdf”, see my previous post). He believes that there is some serious flaw in the MW NE-500 plugin and that it is just by luck that we did not experience any problem so far.

Here is what he wrote me:

"Davide,
There definitely seems to be a timing issue with the software.

First, There is no reason for the software to be re-programming the pump with 4 commands before every RUN command. These are already saved in the pump. The software just needs to issue one command each time:
RUN
All of the responses seem to be grouped on one response line, instead of being spread out with each command. That must be why the RETURNED: lines are blank on 4 out of 5 commands.

I suspect it is the timing of these extra commands that is causing the problem. Each “?” in the RETURNED sections indicates a command that was improperly sent. Even the old set has this problem. There are "?"s in the old pump responses. It is by shear luck that the RUN command didn’t collide with another command.

It is shear randomness that the old pumps worked with the software. Even if I could find another old pump, there is absolutely no guarantee that it will randomly work again. The software needs to be corrected.

Barry"

Please, either Chris or Dave let me know ASAP what you think. This is a very urgent matter for me, but I believe it is also an issue of general interest.

Thanks
davide

5

Davide,

I am traveling at the moment, but will take a look at this shortly. I don’t think that your friend the pump guy understands that amount delivered on each and every dispense might be different (which is why those commands are sent every time). If their firmware can’t handle setting those options each time, then something is very wrong on their side.

More likely, there seems to be some timing issue. As far as I remember, the pump code waits for a response after every command, but it may be that the new firmware is exceeding the timeout for the plugin to wait for a response.

Dave

Sent from my iPhone

6

Dave’s fix for this problem, which I assume Davide has had for a while, is now in the nightly build, so I’m closing this discussion.