Dennis Systems, your all inclusive IT service company Paeroa

Below are some applications we have developed

LogiTemp was created because of the continuous need for flexibility in controlling different Climate Chamber technologies. Logitemp utilises today’s technologies and is able to support a wide range of new devices quickly.

Logitemp was also created with a modern look in mind

Logitemps network capabilities make it extremely flexible.
The Logitemp hardware background service is installed on the laboratory computer connected to the climate chambers. The Logitemp user front end can then be installed and used from any computer on the local network. When the user front end starts it finds all logitemp hardware computers on your network enabling you to configure, manage and monitor climate chambers from any computer in the local network.

Logitemps exporting and reporting capabilities are extensive. With support for exporting to Excel, PDF, HTML, CSV and XML.

Logitemp can also send notifications about customer events via email or SMS

Logitemps status window can be launched from the system tray and shows important information about devices and chambers. When a device is selected more information about it is shown to the right.

RI-Auto

RI-Auto was created for a local firm. They had an old data processing system that worked purely on SQL queries and shell scripts.

Their goal was to simplify their work process and to ensure the data being processed was done so correctly.

We analysed all the old scripts and SQL queries and created a new .Net application with a MYSQL back end.

The result has turned what was a 1 week specialist job into a 3 hour job that someone with little training could complete.

The entire application is extremely flexible. Each process step is called a filter, and a group of filters are called chains.

Each filter can exist multiple times with its own configuration.

Filters can be added, removed or reorder in chains and you can create multiple chains for different circumstances

Probe CalSoft

Probe CalSoft is a project written for internal use for Germany based company PMK GmbH..

Using digital millimetres and a vectorial network analyser it measures the accuracy of electrical probes. If the probe meets all requirements a PDF report is automatically generated and uploaded to an FTP server.

The reposts are generated from an XML base utilising XSL and XSL-FO technology. The entire application is written in C# and uses the Office 2007 Fluent user interface.

PChamber

P-Chamber officially launched in December 2004 is another project created for PMK GmbH. It is used by such companies as EADS.

The aim is to create an easy to use software for controlling climate chambers. The chambers can generate temperatures in the range between from -85°C to 180°C (depending on the chamber). Some of them are capable of setting air humidity as well.

All available chambers are organised in groups. Independent to that programs are created. They contain loops, which contain settings. These settings reflect the action of the program, for instance, setting the chamber to 75°C with 50% RH.

P-Chamber utilises the PMK Device Handling through device-descriptors and device-controls.

On this dialog, the program and chamber group is chosen. In general, every program can run with any group. The restrictions are natural. a group can run only once at a time, and the program can only run with a group which supports all the settings. It would not make any sense to run a program with humidity control with chambers, which do not have a humidity unit.

This dialog is used to add, modify and delete programs. The tree structure represents a program. Every branch is a loop which contains settings.

To visualise the created program, the next dialog is used.

Here you can see a graph for the program edited in the editor above. The green line represents the humidity, while the blue line depicts the temperature. The purple horizontal line represents the 0-axis. The values on the x-axis show the time span.

The humidity line is broken, because the humidity control is not used all the time. To be precise it can only be used, while the chamber is in positive temperature ranges.

A setting may contain a temperature and a humidity value. Optional log-interval can be specified. If no log interval is specified, then the log-interval of the parent-loop is taken. Every setting has a time. This time can be used in several ways:

Hold, the time is used as the period of holding the setting. If Wait is chosen, then this time starts, after the target is reached. Otherwise it starts when the target is set.
Ramp, the time represents the period, in which the target is reached. The settings slowly come closer to the target.

A loop has a nick-name for easier identification. The count defines the amount of iterations Optional log-interval can be specified. If no log interval is specified, then the log-interval of the parent-loop is taken.

The Run dialog shows information's about the actual running program. Because several programs can run at a time, all following dialogs have the program-name and chamber-group-name written in the title.

The dialog show the overall time: Start, estimated End and estimated remaining time. The progress bar indicates the estimated progress.

In contrast to the previous, this dialog shows the status of the current step. It displays the estimated end and progress. It shows at the top the target temperature and humidity. The blocks below reflect the status of every used chamber.

Because the current setting contains no humidity, the humidity side is disabled.

This dialog looks very similar to the program-editor further up. The selected setting is the current setting.

This dialog is used to monitor the malfunction status of the chambers. In case of an error, this dialog is extended and shows information about the error. The information's are:

Trouble of the malfunction
Cause of the malfunction
Redemption action to eliminate the malfunction.

Pcal

This project was started in 2000, when Dennis was a temporary worker for the PMK GmbH (Ltd.). It was the first commercial automation Software written by Dennis.

P-Cal is used to automatically generate calibration-reports for high-voltage probes. It measures the deviation between the test probe and the reference divider. The derivations are exported to a html table and stored on a FTP server. It utilises the following self made I²C-Devices:

Switcher : Switches between the reference-divider and the probe additionally. It is used to adapt the impedance of the different measurement ranges. The Switcher is simply a PCF-8574 connected to relays via an opto-copper.
PMK DAC-Bus-Bridge : To keep the DAC-Boards usage flexible I developed a minimalistic 16-Bit-Bus where all DAC-Boards are attached. Every Board has a unique address in the range of 0 to 15. The Bridge is realized by 3 PCF-8574s, an easy to use 8-Bit I²C-IO-Expander.
16-Bit DAC : All 16 Bit-DAC-Boards produce a voltage between 0 V and 10 V. Currently they are used to generate the control-voltages to set the voltage and maximum current, created by the high-voltage-generator.

The following commercial devices are used:

HP 3456A, HP 34401A Voltmeter : This device is connected via the GPIB-Bus with the PC. To control the voltmeter I used the library distributed with the GPIB-PC-card. The voltmeter is used to measure the deviation between reference-divider and probe.
F&G High voltage-generator : It generates a high-voltage between 0V and 35kV according to the controlling voltage input. It features an output to detect a voltage break. Voltage breaks are produced by defect probes. Whenever a voltage break occurs the high-voltage generator turns of the output voltage and waits for a reset.
Lutron temperature and humidity sensor: This sensor reports the temperature and humidity of the laboratory environment. This values are stored in the test report for reference.
Espec Climate Chamber : The climate chambers generate temperatures in the range from -85°C to 180°C. Some off them are capable of setting the humidity as well. P-Cal utilises them mainly to have a reproducible environment.

P-Test utilises the PMK Device Handling through device-descriptors and device-controls.

The following images and instruction illustrate a usual calibration. All visible measurement-values are random and are not real

When P-Cal starts up, it checks the connected device for errors. For instances it checks if the connected hardware is generating realistic values. The use of devices which past the calibration due date are disabled.
Now the user can choose a test and enter fields like serial- and order-number. P-Cal. In the gray box on the top right the probe associated with the test is shown. The usual user has no possibility to change any settings.
This image shows if the application is started as administrator. The administrator can change now directly settings for the used template and the amount of probes used. More settings are now available via the windows dialog. This is described further down. Lets now take a look how it works. The user pushes the GO button and the test starts.
If a climate chamber is used, then the wanted climate is created. After the chamber has reached the target-setting, it waits for given amount of time.
Now the user has to calibrate the probe. This means he turn a screw. The direction is indicated through the twisting, crying smile. As soon as the probe is in the tolerance range, the smile stops twisting and smiles. The user pushes now the smile and the program starts to generate the calibration report.
Now the program runs through a range of voltages. For instances from 5kV to 20kV in 1kV steps.
It stores the derivation between the probe and a connected reference divider. The data collected while the measurements are running, can be seen in the Calibration-Status-Dialog on the right. This values are put into a html-table at the end of the run.
Now back to the admin-mode. The admin sees at the beginning one more significant window. The windows-dialog. Here he can choose which one, of the administrator windows he wants to open. All the following dialogs are accessible through this dialog.
This dialog contains the parameter used during a test. It is possible to specify for every test loop the following attributes: Hold time of the voltage Start- and End-Voltage, step-width Accuracy of the calibration Start- and End-Temperature, step-width Start- and End-Humidity, step-width Precise or quick voltage setting
In this dialog, the characteristics (like attenuation) of the use Probes are specified. These probes are linked with a test. Therefore one probe can be reused in several tests.
This dialog is used to calibrate the used DACs. The line has to go straight from the bottom-left to the top-right. The radio-buttons on the left indicate in which direction the offset and gain has to be adjusted. On top the values measurement for 0V, 5V and 10V are displayed. They should be as precise as possible.
This dialog creates a table of the relation between DAC-Input Values and the voltage/ampere which comes really out. With help of this table, voltage and currency are quickly set. For the currency, these tables are essential, because the currency is very unlinear.
This dialog is for debug purpose only. It is possible to measure the output of the DACs directly or through a probe. The DAC is set with direct values like -32768 for 0V, 0 for 5V and 32767 for 10V.