Anyone have instrument drivers for MKS PR4000 and/or MKS 647B?

[Jake Stern]

I'm looking for RS232 serial drivers for MKS Instruments' PR4000
Flow/Pressure Controller and for their 647B Multi Gas Controller. If anyone
has anything for these devices, I would be most grateful.

-Jake Stern
jake@flexics.com

[Ryan_M]

Unfortunately, NI does not have any instrument drivers developed for those instruments. National Instruments develops Instrument drivers based on demand and popularity. If it is a commercially available instrument, you can officially request one at:
http://zone.ni.com/idnet/other.htm
The more requests we have for it, the greater the possibility that we will develop one in the future.


If you would like to try developing your own instrument driver (or modify the existing one), we have documentation, model instrument drivers, and driver templates to help at :
http://zone.ni.com/idnet/development.htm).


We also have a syndicate of third party vendors that specialize in National Instruments' products and services. Some of the vendors specialize in driver developme
nt. I would suggest contacting one of the Alliance members at:
http://www.ni.com/alliance

I might also suggest contacting the instrument vendor to see if they have any available code from which you can build an application.

[usm1]

Hi Jake,

I am currently working on a MKS 647C Gas Flow Controller. The controller is connected to the computer's USB port using a RS232 to USB serial converter. I plan on controlling the controller using Labview, so I need instrument drivers for it. By any chance, did you find any? If you had to develop your own drivers, do you think you could help me out as well?
Thanks.

[DOC-doc]

Hi Jake,

What is the name of the company because I did some RS232 drivers for a MKS machine (pressure & volume controller), so I was wondering if it was the same kind or family of devices.

Cheers, 

[usm1]

Well, MKS Instruments (http://www.mksinst.com/) makes the PR4000, the 647B, and the 647C. I don't know what the PR4000 is, but I know the 647B and 647C are Gas Flow Controllers. Here is the 647C's data sheet: http://www.mksinst.com/pdf/647.pdf

[DOC-doc]

Sorry this was not the MKS I was thinking about...

Good luck to find the drivers

[PietroBin]

Did you found a driver?

I am fighting with a PR4000... I'm not able to communicate vie RS232, I've got no reply and of couse the instrument does not accept the commands.

I have perused the MKS manual, but I was not able to find the full set of port settings, just parity, baudrate, and termination char.

What about data bits? Flow control? etc.

Thanks in advance,

Pietro

[unclebump]

Do you have a demo program that came with the PR4000?? You could use portmon to watch the data traffic.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Portmon.html

[NyteFall]

Just in case anyone happens to stumble upon this old thread like I did...

There are instrument drivers for the MKS 647C Mass Flow Controller (compatible with the MKS 647B) in LabVIEW.

They can be found by clicking Tools >> Instrumentation >> Find Instrument Drivers...

Then choose MKS Instruments as the company and hit search (feel free to leave the "Additional Keywords" blank because there are only 2 different MKS driver sets currently).

If you run into any problems with the drivers (I did not), here is a link to the user manual: http://www.mksinst.com/docs/R/647Cman.pdf

There is a full run-down on how to use RS232 communication starting on page 33.

Good Luck! 🙂