User guide

Chelsea Technologies Group
FAST
tracka
User Guide HB179 Issue 7.0
Page
33
of
47
3. Saturation Flashes per sequence (SFC): This is the number of saturation flashes in the
flash sequence. It can range from 1-100.
4. Saturation Flash duration (SFW): This field is a machine code for the duration of each
saturation flash, and can range from 4 to 100. It is important to keep this parameter less
than half of the flash period. See the next section for further details.
A. Saturation interflash delay (SID): This field is a machine code for the time between the
beginning of each saturation flash, and can range from 0 to 65535. See the next section
for further details.
B. Decay Flashes ENABLED/DISABLED: Use this field to disable Decay flashes. Setting
this option to DISABLE will cause the FAST
tracka
to skip the decay flash generation
during a flash sequence.
C. Decay flashes per sequence (DFC): This field is the number of decay flashes in the
flash sequence, and may range from 1 to 20. A flash sequence may have no decay
flashes; this must be programmed by DISABLING the Decay Flashes, in option B
above.
D. Decay flash duration (DFW): This field is a machine code for the duration of each decay
flash, similar to the saturation flashes, and can range from 4 to 100. See the next section
for further details.
E. Decay interflash delay (DID): This field is a machine code for the time between decay
flashes, similar to the saturation interflash delay, and can range from 0 to 1000. See the
next section for further details.
F. Sleep-time between sequences: This field sets the time delay between the end of the
previous acquisition and the start of the next. Only short times may be entered here (in
milliseconds), from 100 to 60000 (1 minute). Longer sleep-times should be
programmed with the Programmed Acquire Menu.
G. PMT gain in Normal mode: There are two modes of data acquisition, the default Normal
mode and Auto Ranging mode. When choosing this option the user is prompted to:
Press Y for Auto Ranging Mode, N for Normal mode. If Y is chosen the user is
prompted to: Enter a value for the lower signal Limit 0-9 (3 is the default). The lower
signal limit is a value where the signal from the flourescence detector can be
considered as noise. If N is chosen the user sets the gain level of the fluorescence
detector channel. It is graded in steps of four, i.e. x1, x4, x16, x64, x256. A setting of x0
sets the photomultiplier gain to zero.
H. Analogue Output: Enabling this mode instructs the FAST
tracka
to present the scaled Fo
and Fm approximate values to the analogue output bulkhead connector. See the
Analogue Output section of this Manual for further details.
I. Desktop Mode: Enabling this mode will spool the collected acquisition record to the
screen in real time. This information may be collected by a screen capture utility or
simply viewed.
J. Light Chamber: Enabling this option will activate optical channel A during acquisition
and allow it to flash.
K. Dark Chamber: Enabling this option will activate optical channel B during acquisition and
allow it to flash. If both channel A and B are enabled, an acquisition will alternate
channels starting with channel A. Also, an acquisition comprises only one channel.
Thus, for an acquisition setting of 1, with both channels enabled, only channel A will
flash. Requesting 4 acquisitions will flash ABAB, etc. See the section on Protocol
Examples, below, for more information.