Oxford Instruments Mercury Intelligent Temperature Controller

class pymeasure.instruments.oxfordinstruments.MercuryiTC(adapter, name='Oxford MercuryiTC', **kwargs)

Represents the Oxford Instruments Mercury iTC (Intelligent Temperature Controller) and provides a high-level interface for interacting with the instrument. Note thath the GPIB implementation on this instrument is not fully SCPI-compliant, with only the *IDN? command supported. The Mercury iTC can be configured to respond to a so-called SCPI instruction set (that is, again, not actually an SCPI implementation) or to a legacy instruction set. The implementation used here is the so-called SCPI instruction set.

The iTC is expandable and supports a mixture temperature sensors, heaters, pressure sensors, cryogen level sensors and auxiliary I/O through the installation of additional, function-specific daughter boards. Currently, only temperature sensors and heaters are implemented.

By default, there is a temperature sensor channel installed with Unique Identifier (UID) 'MB1.T1' and a heater channel with UID 'MB0.H1'. These channels are created automatically at instantiation of the controller. These can be accessed as either .TS_MB and .HTR_MB, or through the collections (dictionaries) .TS['MB1.T1'] and .HTR['MB0.H1'].

Other sensors and heaters can be installed on additional daughter boards (with specific UID e.g. 'DBX.T1', 'DBX.H1' etc), and can be added manually to an already instantiated MercuryiTC using .add_temperature_sensor(UID) and .add_heater(UID). They must be given their correct UID as listed by the Mercury iTC itself as this is how they are addressed during communication. Additionally, they are accessed only through the instrument collections .TS[UID] and .HTR[UID].

controller = MercuryiTC("GPIB::1")

# Print the current measured temperature of the motherboard temperature sensor aka 'MB1.T1'
print(controller.TS_MB.temperature)

# Print the motherboard temperature sensor control-loop setpoint
print(controller.TS['MB1.T1'].loop_T_setpoint)

# Add new temperature sensor with UID 'DB6.T1'
controller.add_temperature_sensor('DB6.T1')

# Print the new sensor's temperature
print(controller.TS['DBS.T1'].temperature)

HTR_MB

Channel:: Heater

TS_MB

Channel:: TemperatureSensor

add_heater(id, prefix='HTR', **kwargs): Add a heater with unique identifier id to collection of addressable heaters: .HTR[id]

add_temperature_sensor(id, prefix='TS', **kwargs): Add a temperature sensor with unique identifier id to collection of addressable temperature sensors: .TS[id]

property identity: Any: Get identity of unit.

class pymeasure.instruments.oxfordinstruments.mercuryitc.TemperatureSensor(parent, id, **kwargs)

Bases: Channel

A temperature sensor channel on the Oxford Instruments Mercury iTC.

Depending on sensor type (e.g. diode, NTC/PTC resistor), some properties will not be valid. Therefore, sensor configuration must be known and set a priori. Only diode sensor types are currently implemented.

Control loops are accessed via temeperature sensors, rather than heaters. Therefore loop control is kept with other temperature sensor properties.

check_set_errors(): The MercuryiTC responds to every communication (get and set). This simply reads back on setting a property.

property control_loop_D: Any: Control the derivative term, D, of the control loop.

property control_loop_I: Any: Control the integral term, I, of the control loop.

property control_loop_P: Any: Control the proportional term, P, of the control loop.

property control_loop_PID_enabled: Any: Control whether the control-loop heater is controlled by the PID loop (True) or the manual heater percentage (False).

property control_loop_heater_percent: Any: Control the heater percentage when output configured to manual mode (in the range 0 to 100).

property control_loop_ramp_enabled: Any: Control whether the temperature ramping function is enabled (True) or disabled (False).

property control_loop_ramp_rate: Any: Control the control loop ramp rate, in K/min, if enabled (in the range 0 to 100000).

property control_loop_temperature_setpoint: Any: Control the control loop temperature setpoint, in Kelvin (in the range 0 to 2000).

property temperature: Any: Get the measured temperature, in Kelvin.

property voltage: Any: Get the sensor voltage, in Volts.

class pymeasure.instruments.oxfordinstruments.mercuryitc.Heater(parent, id, **kwargs)

Bases: Channel

A heater channel on the Oxford Instruments Mercury iTC.

Various parameters of the heater output can be accessed, and some properties can be configured. PID control is accessed through an associated temperature sensor. It is assumed that the heater is already associated with a temperature sensor control loop, or otherwise set to operate in open-loop configuration.

check_set_errors(): The MercuryiTC responds to every communication (get and set). This simply reads back on setting a property.

property current: Any: Get the heater excitation current, in Amps.

property max_power: Any: Get the provisional maximum power of the heater, in Watts.

property power: Any: Get the heater power dissipation, in Watts.

property resistance: Any: Control the programmed heater resistance, in Ohms (float strictly in the range of 10 to 2000).

property voltage: Any: Get the heater excitation voltage, in Volts.

property voltage_limit: Any: Control the voltage limit of the heater output, in Volts (float strictly from 0 to 40).