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Calibration Workshop 2

Calibration Workshop 2 versus version 1 ............................................................................ 2


Fast track to work with Calibration Workshop 2 ................................................................. 3
Reporting: when you want to check the calibration.......................................................... 11
Additional functionality .......................................................................................................... 12
File menu ............................................................................................................................ 12
Select Dispenser............................................................................................................ 12
Edit profiles ..................................................................................................................... 13
Settings ........................................................................................................................... 18
Channel menu .................................................................................................................... 18
Calibrate .......................................................................................................................... 18
Report .............................................................................................................................. 18
Calibration profile ........................................................................................................... 18
Copy calibration table ................................................................................................... 18
Paste calibration table................................................................................................... 18
Maintenance menu ............................................................................................................ 18
Purge Single ................................................................................................................... 18
Purge All.......................................................................................................................... 18
Refill ................................................................................................................................. 18
Configuration .................................................................................................................. 19
Help Menu........................................................................................................................... 19
About ............................................................................................................................... 19
Analyzing Reporting data using the Channel Analyzer worksheet ................................ 21
Explanation of the analysis sheet ................................................................................... 22
Explanation of the graph................................................................................................... 23
Explanation of statistical terms: ....................................................................................... 23
What do these statistical figures tell you about the behavior of this pump? ............ 24
Calibration Workshop 2

Calibration Workshop 2 versus version 1


The approach to establish a calibration table using Calibration Workshop 2 differs
significantly from the approach used in CW 1. Where CW 1 used a machine units
based approach, the approach used in CW 2 is based on dispense volumes.

The primary input for a calibration process in CW 1 is a range of step counts. For
each of these step counts a number of dispenses is performed and the mean
volume, dispensed by each step count is determined. These step counts and
corresponding mean dispensed volumes are written into the calibration table.

The primary input for a calibration process in CW 2, is a range of dispense volumes.


For each of these dispense volumes, a process to determine the corresponding step
count is executed: the theoretically corresponding number of step counts is
calculated and subsequently dispensed. Both step count and the actual dispensed
volume are stored in memory and will be taken into account when the next attempt to
find the step count that matches the requested dispense amount is executed. This
process is repeated until actual dispense amounts consistently remain within
specified tolerances for a specified number of times.
Calibration Workshop 2

Fast track to work with Calibration Workshop 2


This section will guide you through starting CW, configuring your scale parameters,
configuring a calibration profile, executing a calibration and checking whether a
calibration is still up to date.

1) You will find CW 2 in the folder “C:\Program Files\Fast and Fluid


Management\IDD”. Start CW 2 by double clicking CalibrationWorkshop.exe.
2) When CW 2 starts, you are presented with a screen showing all channels on
the dispenser. For each channel a number of properties among which a
calibration profile has been selected, see picture below:

3) The first issue we need to address is checking that the scale configuration
matches the actual scale. When you choose “Maintenance” from the main
menu, a submenu containing the “Configuration…” item appears. Please
select this.
4) The following window appears:
Calibration Workshop 2

5) You have now entered the configuration section of the IDEX Dispenser Driver
(IDD). This driver contains all knowledge on how to communicate with a
particular type of dispenser and how exactly this dispenser needs to be
calibrated. Please select the “Settings” tab page. The following window
appears:
Calibration Workshop 2

6) Because the IDD is invoked through Calibration Workshop, a “Scale” panel


containing a “Configuration” button has been made visible. Please click this
button. The following window appears:
Calibration Workshop 2

7) The first item to pay attention to is the Scale Type. This selects the
appropriate communication protocol. In case your scale has a brand name not
listed in the combo box you could consult your scale’s manual for supported
protocols, which may include one or more of the scale brands supported in
this release of the IDD. Please select the appropriate type.
8) When you click the “Set Defaults” button now, the standard communication
Properties of your selected scale type are entered into the “Baudrate” through
the “Stopbits” combo boxes. Please note that the communication properties
may be altered on the scale as well, so these vales need not necessarily be
the right values. In that case you need to adjust either the IDD’s Scale
configuration communication properties or the communication properties of
the scale itself until these parameters correspond. Please also select the
appropriate COM port in the combo box in the upper right corner of the
window and click the “Apply” button.
9) In order to verify that communication is indeed working properly, please verify
that the scale’s serial connection cable has been plugged in the correct COM
port, the scale is also connected to an appropriate power source, and has
been switched on. After clicking Apply, click the “Get Weight” button and
watch the text box on the right side of this button. Either a scale reading
Calibration Workshop 2

appears or a timeout window appears after a minute. In case the timeout


window is displayed, the communication parameters of the IDD and the scale
may not match; the scale may not be connected to the appropriate COM port
etc.
10) Now communication is set up, it is time to finalize the remaining scale
properties. The “Identification” combo box is for identification purposes only
and does not influence operation. The “Resolution” combo box should reflect
the number of digits in the scale readout. This value is used to tailor the
display of communicated weights to the scale display. The “Interval” combo
box is used to specify how many milliseconds consecutive scale readings
should be apart, giving the scale time to become stable. The “Count” combo
box specifies how many scale readings may be performed in order to find two
consecutive identical readouts, indicating a stable scale, before giving up. In
case no stable scale reading was attained, the user will be notified by a
window.
11) The tare button, finally, is provided to enable the user to check that tarring the
scale indeed works.
12) Click OK in order to save any changes you made since clicking the “Apply”
button and leave the “Scale Configuration” window.
13) After closing the configuration windows we’re back at Calibration Workshop’s
main window.

Now let’s have a closer look at calibration “Profiles”, listed below the “Profile”
heading.

1) Each channel may have a particular profile associated with it. For each
channel you should select the most appropriate profile. Some standard
profiles are included in the PrismaPro/IDD/Calibration Workshop package.
You can define your own profiles tailored to your own particular requirements.
2) The profile specifies how the corresponding channel is to be calibrated. In
order to look at a particular profile, either click “Edit Profiles” or right click when
the cursor is positioned on a particular channel. In case you clicked “Edit
Profiles” you need to select the profile you’re interested in via the window that
appears:
Calibration Workshop 2

3) Following selection of a particular profile you’re shown the following window:

This window lists the pump type this profile is intended for (one can only choose
from pump sizes defined in the machine configuration), the amount unit, the
amounts for which this channel must be calibrated, tolerances, number of
samples and cleaning rounds. Their meaning is given below.
1) Amount. The amounts specify which calibration points are to be established. It
makes sense to select amounts that are important to the customer i.e. the
amounts that will be used in the customer’s formulations. When these
Calibration Workshop 2

amounts are to be dispensed, the exact number of steps can be looked up in


the calibration table and need not to be interpolated between other values.
This will lead to greater accuracy.
2) Tolerance: specifies when a sample reaches the requested amount close
enough in order to be used as a calibration point. Please read the chapter
dedicated to tolerances before specifying values here.
3) Samples: specifies how many dispenses within tolerance must have been
sampled in order to calculate the calibration point before CW continues to the
next amount.
4) Cleaning rounds: Because of passing over the brush, dispense always start
with a clean nozzle during normal operation (read: production). However while
calibrating the same pump is used every time, without passing over the brush,
thus dispensing through a drop! This may influence the dispensed volume and
therefore a cleaning round may be explicitly specified. It is usually sufficient to
specify a cleaning round for smaller volumes only (under 3mL), depending on
colorant properties and required accuracy.
5) When the profile doesn’t match your requirements you can either adjust it or
define a complete new profile (Add button on Calibration Profiles window).

Calibration may now be started by selecting a channel and clicking the


“calibration” button. The following window appears:

1) Please note the checkbox marked “Measure the component’s density before
sampling.” Clicking this checkbox causes one full stroke to be dispensed from
this channel and the dispensed mass to be measured. As the pump type of
this channel is known, and therewith the volume of a full stroke of this pump,
Calibration Workshop 2

the density of the component can easily be determined. When you feel the
density already shown matches the actual density you could skip this
operation in order to save time and component.
2) Following density measurement you will notice that the valve of the current
pump is opening and closing 10 times. This is to determine whether fluid is
dispensed by just moving the valve. In case the pump has not been cleared of
air correctly, a tiny amount of fluid may be dispensed every time the valve is
opened and closed. This would of course influence the calibration process and
is therefore measured separately. Note that this operation is repeated
whenever the specified number of cleaning rounds changes between
calibration points. A cleaned nozzle will be influenced by opening and closing
the valve in a different way than a smudged nozzle.
3) Calibration now proceeds from the largest specified amount down to the
smallest specified amount.
4) For each specified calibration point the process begins by calculating the
theoretical number of steps that would be necessary to dispense the stated
amount. This calculation takes not only the theoretical pump parameters into
account, but everything learned from previous dispenses from this channel in
this calibration session as well.
5) The first try that is dispensed for this point is usually already close to the
requested amount but could be outside the stated tolerance. The next iteration
for this calibration point takes this new data into consideration as well and will
be closer to the requested amount. Dispensing and measuring continues until
the requested number of samples within tolerance has been attained.
6) Calibration may continue successfully till the smallest calibration point has
been processed, but it could also turn out that below a particular amount
cannot be dispensed reliably with the current setup. When CW decides that no
converging of results occurs within 5 tries a window will appear, informing the
user of this situation. In this case the smallest reliably dispensable amount will
be written to the dispenser configuration file.
7) When all the channels you want to calibrate have been processed, the
dispenser is ready for normal operation.
8) Instead of pressing the Calibrate button you could press the Report button in
order to check whether an existing calibration table still provides accurate
results. Upon clicking this button, the following window appears:
Calibration Workshop 2

Operation of Reporting is largely analogous to Calibration.

Reporting: when you want to check the calibration


You may want to check the calibration, for instance because of slightly modified
component properties, changes in environment temperature or other factors that
might influence how the components behave in the dispenser.

Although you could just perform another calibration, it is wiser to report dispenser
behavior. This function appears to operate in a way similar to calibration, but there
are a few differences:
• Reporting does not alter the calibration table.
• Reporting does not allow you to measure component density.
• Instead of trying to dispense the requested amount in the calibration point,
reporting dispenses the exact number of steps in the calibration point.
Calibration Workshop 2

• Reporting starts at the smallest amounts as opposed to calibrating which


starts at the largest amounts.
• Reporting creates a data file which may be analyzed using an especially
prepared Excel® worksheet. (=View Report)

Additional functionality

Information on menu item functionality

File menu

Select Dispenser
This menu item allows you to select another dispenser configuration file. Please
make sure that the configuration file you choose corresponds to the dispenser that is
actually connected to the computer. The open dialog that appears when you choose
“Select Dispenser” allows you to navigate through your file system and select the
Calibration Workshop 2

appropriate configuration in the appropriate folder. Click “Open” or double-click the


selected file to make your choice.

Edit profiles

This menu item allows you to select a particular profile for editing. The first step is
selecting the profile you wish to edit in the window which is shown:
Calibration Workshop 2

The window which appears next allows you to manipulate the selected profile. Each
profile consists of a number of calibration points which have several properties. The
optimum number of calibration points in the profile depends on the properties of the
colorant-pump combination. More calibration points could yield a better accuracy but
increases calibration time and colorant loss. The following properties pertain to each
calibration point:

Amount
Specify the amounts that are important in your formulae here. In case many
formulae contain a particular amount, let’s assume 1 ml, it makes sense to
specify this as a calibration point. Following calibration, the steps necessary to
dispense this exact amount can be read directly from the calibration table and
therefore dispensed most accurately. During normal operation, other amounts
are interpolated between the points in the calibration table and may be just as
accurate; depending on how the particular colorant performs for that amount in
that particular pump.

Tolerance (during calibration)


The tolerance in CW DOES specify the range in which samples are accepted
for being used in establishing the calibration table. So the tolerance only
specifies what measurements should be taken into account and which not.
Tolerances tighter than what is possible with the fluid and pump combination
might cause calibration to fail.

The tolerance in CW does NOT set the tolerances within which the
dispenser should operate during normal functioning (read production). During
normal operation, the necessary number of steps is just interpolated from the
Calibration Workshop 2

calibration table depending on repeatability and fluid characteristics in


combination with pump characteristics.

Please consider the following imaginary, and ideal, list of dispenses in the
format Steps, Amount dispensed in ml.

Step, ml
95, 0.95
96, 0.96
97, 0.07
98, 0.98
99, 0.99
100, 1.00
101, 1.01
102, 1.02
103, 1.03
104, 1.04
105, 1.05

When tolerance is set to 0.03, only the following dispenses would be used to
calculate the calibration table:

Step, ml
97, 0.07
98, 0.98
99, 0.99
100, 1.00
101, 1.01
102, 1.02
103, 1.03

And when the tolerance is set to 0.05 the dispenses values listed below would
be used to calculate the calibration table:

Step, ml
95, 0.95
96, 0.96
97, 0.07
98, 0.98
99, 0.99
100, 1.00
Calibration Workshop 2

101, 1.01
102, 1.02
103, 1.03
104, 1.04
105, 1.05

Note that, in this example, both tolerances would result in exactly the same
calibration table because in this ideal situation each step exactly dispenses
0.01 ml.

Because this is not usually the case in the real world and calibration workshop
needs to search for the exact steps/volume ratio at different amounts, a
tolerance has been built in to make sure that only those dispenses are taken
into account when calculating the calibration table that are sufficiently close to
the desired value.

In an ideal fluid and pump combination a very coarse tolerance would be


sufficient because all dispense would have exactly the same steps/volume
relation. However, an ideal fluid does not seem to exist, so we want to use
only measurements that are more or less close to the desired value. The exact
dimension of the tolerance is difficult to state as it depends on the
colorant/pump/amount/speed combination but 0.1 ml seems to be a good
starting point.

When a tolerance is specified too tight, which is the case when the relation
between steps and dispensed volume yields larger differences than the
specified tolerance and consequently calibration workshop fails to calculate a
number of steps that dispenses a volume within the specified tolerance then
the tolerance needs to be increased.

These tolerances are NOT used during normal operation (production). When
working, normally the number of steps needed to dispense a certain volume,
is interpolated from the calibration table and subsequently dispensed.
Differences in dispensed amount for a certain number of steps entirely depend
on fluid and pump characteristics.

Whether your data are "correct" depends on your needs. You could use the
"report" function in CW to verify that amounts and repeatability conform to your
needs.

Tolerance (during reporting)


Calibration Workshop 2

During reporting the specified tolerance is used to distinguish between reliable


operation and failure.

Samples (during calibration)


The number of samples specified in the calibration point specifies how many
measurements within tolerance must have been made before the calibration
point is completed.

Samples (during reporting)


The number of samples specified in the calibration point specifies how many
dispenses must have been made before the calibration point is completed.

Clean Rounds
This specifies how many times the turntable must rotate between dispenses in
order to clean the nozzle. During normal operation each nozzle passes the
brush at least once but in order to save time this value may be set to 0 for
larger amounts where measurement accuracy is not affected too much. The
normal value for Clean Rounds is 1.
Calibration Workshop 2

Settings
The settings window allows you to specify your preferences regarding units,
displaying accuracy and automatic start of calibrating functionality.

Channel menu
Calibrate
Starts the calibration process
Report
Starts the reporting process
Calibration profile
Create/modify/delete calibration profiles
Copy calibration table
This menu item copies the calibration table of the channel that was selected in
Calibration Workshop’s main screen.
Paste calibration table
This menu item pastes the calibration table of the channel where it was copied
from to the channel that was selected in Calibration Workshop’s main screen.

Maintenance menu
Purge Single
This menu item purges (dispenses a predefined small amount) from the
channel that was selected in Calibration Workshop’s main screen.
Purge All
This menu item purges all channels.
Refill
Calibration Workshop 2

This menu item moves the turntable to the refill position and presents a refill
dialog for the channel that was selected in Calibration Workshop’s main
screen.
Configuration
This menu item presents the IDD (IDEX Dispenser Driver) configuration
screen to the user. Please consult the PrismaPro manual for a complete
description of the IDD configuration windows.

Help Menu

About

The about screen show you the version of Calibration Workshop.


Calibration Workshop 2

Principle of operation

Upon measuring, Calibration Workshop starts with calculating the requested number
of steps in order to dispense the largest specified calibration point. Calculation is
performed by interpolating on the line (0,0) through (Full stroke amount, Maximum
steps). The calculated number of steps is subsequently dispensed, the dispensed
mass is measured and finally the dispensed volume is determined by dividing the
measured mass by the component’s density. Usually the dispensed volume is quite
close to the specified calibration point but can be improved. For the next iterations,
CW not only takes the theoretical dispensing behavior into account, but all actually
measured data as well. This allows for closer approximation of the requested
amounts i.e. the system is self learning during calibration.
Calibration Workshop 2

Analyzing Reporting data using the Channel Analyzer worksheet

Note: in order to start this tool, one has to have Excel® installed on the computer.

In the folder “C:\Program Files\Fast and Fluid Management\IDD” you will find the file
“ProgressXML.xls.” This is an Excel® worksheet that will help you interpreting report
data. When you start this worksheet by clicking it, the following window appears:
Calibration Workshop 2

By clicking the button labeled “Fill Sheet from XML file”, and subsequently opening
the file you want to analyze, a window containing as many tab pages as channels,
available in the selected file, appears:

In each page you’ll find lists containing channel settings, dispense results, an
analysis of these results and a graphical visualization of these results.

Explanation of the analysis sheet

The analysis sheet contains the following items:


1) A block containing general information such as colorant name, colorant
density and a timestamp.
2) A graph, displaying requested amounts on the horizontal axis and error
percentages on the vertical axis. Please see more detailed explanations
below.
3) A block containing the channel settings that were in effect during the reporting
session.
Calibration Workshop 2

4) A block containing statistical information that was derived from the reporting
results. Please see for more detailed explanations below.
5) A block containing the individual measurements obtained during reporting.

Explanation of the graph

The graph contains the following elements:


1) The relative errors represented by a solid red line.
2) The relative minima and maxima for reporting results of one single amount
indicated by a blue bar.
3) The confidence maxima and minima represented by dotted red lines.

Explanation of statistical terms:

1) Average (or mean) yield: This describes the average amount that is dispensed
by the dispenser when a particular amount is requested.
2) Absolute error: This describes the difference between the requested amount
and the average yield.
3) Relative error: This describes the absolute error expressed as a percentage of
the requested amount.
4) Absolute standard deviation: The (absolute) standard deviation is a measure
of how widely spread the values in a set of measurements are. If many data
points are close to the mean then the standard deviation is small; if many data
points are far from the mean, then the standard deviation is large. If all the
data values are equal, then the standard deviation is zero.
5) Relative standard deviation: This describes the standard deviation expressed
as a percentage of the requested amount.
6) Relative maximum: This describes the difference between the largest
measurement and the requested amount as a percentage of the requested
amount.
7) Relative minimum: This describes the difference between the smallest
measurement and the requested amount as a percentage of the requested
amount.
8) 95% confidence factor: This factor is used in the calculation of the confidence
interval maximum and minimum.
9) Confidence interval maximum: This describes the upper boundary of the
interval in which, with a probability of 95%, the mean of another set of
measurements under identical circumstances will be situated.
10) Confidence interval minimum: This describes the lower boundary of the
interval in which, with a probability of 95%, the mean of another set of
measurements under identical circumstances will be situated.
Calibration Workshop 2

What do these statistical figures tell you about the behavior of this pump?

Basically, the ability to predictably dispense a particular amount is dependant on both


the repeatability of the process and the accuracy of translating observed dispensing
behavior into dispenser control parameters.

Translating observed dispensing behavior into dispenser control parameters involves


interpolation in the calibration table.
An offset average yield is an indicator for an inaccurate calibration table and
suggesting recalibration.
Repeatable dispensing depends on a multitude of factors, among which colorant
properties at a given set of environment parameters, pump construction (dispensed
volume/step, valve and nozzle construction) pump speeds, and timings.
The (relative) standard deviation is an indicator for the repeatability of the process.
Possibilities to improve dispensing are experimenting with pump speeds and timings
and contemplating a different type of pump.

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