On March 29th, I posted the following question to the list:
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I am considering upgrading my Bruker AM-400 with Tecmag's DSPECT
Data
Acquisition System. Has anyone either done or considered doing this?
If so, I'd
appreciate any information you would be willing to share about your
experiences
with it.
Is Tecmag reliable and responsive? How well does their hardware
work
with the remaining Bruker hardware? Is the software easy to use?
Buggy?
I'll post a summary of responses. Thanks you.
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I received several responses. (A few respondents are considering
the
same upgrade.) These were generally positive -- complaints were mostly
minor. There seems to be general agreement that Tecmag is very helpful
in problem-solving and bug-fixing. The first five messages included
below resulted from the AMMRL posting. The last three messages are
from people that Tecmag listed as "references". The content of my
request for information from these Tecmag users was essentially the
same as my posting to AMMRL.
I'm still not sure which way we are going to go on this issue, but
the
information obtained here will certainly help in making the decision.
Many thanks to all those who responded.
Walt
-- Walter A. Tabaczynski Biophysics Department Voice: (716)845-8288 Roswell Park Cancer Institute Fax: (716)845-3475 Elm & Carlton Sts. wt@waltz.med.buffalo.edu Buffalo, New York 14263-0001#############################################################
I can't speak for Bruker AM-400's but we have a TecMag Interface on an old GE QE-300. It was put on there before I got here, and I must say that I dislike the general style of the program... please note
that I am a UNIX person, but our TecMag Interface uses a MAC.
There are, however, advantages... 1) it uses a new(er) Mac as a computer, so there are more options in terms of networking and expansion of capabilities. 2) The software itself allowed some improvement in capablities, even though I often pull out my few remaining hairs while trying to figure out under which menu some of the options can be found.
They usually do respond fairly quickly to questions, and sometimes go out of their way to help. Yet, I am do sort of get the impression that they are very limited in their knowledge base.
I think I heard somewhere that Bruker will refuse to provide service for anyone with a non-Bruker console.
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We have a Tecmag based imaging system although not around an AM. It is easy to use if you know NMR. As you probably know, you can build new pulse sequences quite easily with there graphical based software. However, if you have routine users which reqiure a menu driven interface to calculate appropriate parameters, it may not be right for your lab. On the flip side, it does make a very good teaching tool for this reason. Tecmag support has been very responsive to my questions.
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I have used Tecmag systems with home built machines. I like them quite a bit. The pulse programming was pretty clear cut and the machine was flexible enough that we could do any odd thing that we wanted. (We were doing solid-state technique development.)
I'm not certain that it is a good system for many users, however. I haven't seen the latest versions of the software, but the older stuff was definitely better in a smaller user environment. At the time I used it, you couldn't really lock people out of others data or write protect your pulse programs. It also isn't the clearest system to use if you are only a casual user.
I hope this helps. Remember, it has been a couple of years since I've used this system.
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I have used both AC and AM spectrometers before. I have seen an upgrade of an AC-300 for solids work, and we have an upgrade for an NR-80, both using MacNMR. The people I talked to about the AC-300 were highly complementary of the software and the ease of use. They didn't report any problems with hardware incompatability. We had problems with the NR-80, and I recently
got all of those problems resolved. So I haven't been able to put the spectrometer through a workout yet. But thus far, it seems much nicer for data handling and processing than DISNMR or whatever other software you may be using.
TecMag has been very responsive to inquiries and problems I have had.
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Last September, 1998 I installed Dspect Ntnmr on my Bruker 250 NMR, replacing the Aspect 3000/Pulse Programmer.
Overall, I'm pretty much satisfied with the modification. There are things that are superior to our old standard configuration, and things that are not. If not for tecMag's "REMOTELY POSSIBE/32" feature (which allows tecMag to run your system remotely off the internet), I'd have experienced a degree of frustration.
The DSpect NT system was delivered with Ntnmr software already installed. Murphy's Law dictated that the system would not work and it didn't. David Ferguson (tecMag support) was able to bring the system up using "REMOTELY POSSIBE/32" and resolve problems
unique to my spectrometer.
The main complaint I receive from user's:
1. The Peak Pick routine leaves a lot to be desired; insofar as
the "Tail Lines" are too long and run into the nmr lines (can't tell were the nmr line ends, vertically, because the "Tail Lines" run into the top of tall nmr lines). I have the same complaint about VARIAN's PP routine.
2. Although it might be a better way of doing it, my users would rather the INTEGRAL intensity values be in absolute numbers with respect to each other, rather than the way it is with DSpect. Their intergal readout is based on the integer "1" and all intergral values are a factor of it. (ie. 1, 1.3, 4.2, like that) with a multiplication factor.
3. The BASELINE CORRECTION routine (which corrects for quadrature differences) doesn't really eliminate totally the "spike" in the middle of the spectrum. If you don't stop the experiment after a full phase cycle, the "spike" could be rather bad at times. (This could be a spectrometer problem and not DSpect ?????)
4. I NEVER considered using the Ntnmr Software to LOCK/SHIM. On first glance it appeared to be too tedious for my users. My users still lock and shim using the original spectrometer's protocol.
These are complaints that may or may not distrub other NMR labs, so I offer them in a constructive sense, and not as a negative against Ntnmr. There are many features that far outweigh our "complaints." Speed is one of them.
If you are keeping computer user logs on your 400, you should be aware
that the NT EVENT VIEWER doesn't present a simple login/logout text file which then can be
used to audit use as I must do. However, you can write programs to target certain redundant
features. (I use PERL)
That's my two cents.
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The following are the three responses I received from the people that Tecmag refered me to.
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We have an AM 300 instrument with solids that we put their Macintosh based system on a few years ago (it was all that they were selling at the time) and an AC 200 basic liquids instrument that just got a new NT based data system with NTNMR
I like their hardware and software, in general. It works quite well with the old Bruker hardware. When you hook it up, you just disconnect a bunch of the cables from the back of the Aspect and attach them to matching connectors on the Tecmag box, then attach a serial cable from the PC to the SCM.
Techmag sells the system with a video converter module and a display board for the computer that allows you to input composite video and display it in a window on the screen so you can see the lock display. I think that this is an OK solution, particularly if you are only using the lock display, but it
suffers if you need to keep the Aspect available. (more on that later)
On the AM 300 where the display is failing I used the Tecmag video converter module but connected its composite video output to a seperate NTSC monitor. That gives us a big (12") display screen instead of a little window on a 16" CRT and it improves the quality of the picture a lot. On the AC 200 I'm still using the standard display and not the Tecmag converter. (Actually our standard Bruker display failed a few years ago and I wired in an old NEC Multisync II monitor in its place. The trick is to find an RGB monitor that will sync at the 15 KHz/60Hz TV frequencies. Most multisyncs don't go that low)
We are still switching over from the Aspect on the AC 200 - moving files and such - so we still need to be able to see the Aspect display and that seems to be pretty poor on the Tecmag "lock on screen" display. In addition the other person that maintains the instruments with me has never liked the Tecmag
autoshim system compared with the Bruker, so she wants to hook the Aspect back up to the SCM to autoshim, which means that we need to be able to see the Aspect display.
You may want to run the two data systems in parallel for a while just to move shim sets, etc from the Aspect to the Tecmag. We hook the SCM to the Aspect, recall a shim set, hook the SCM to the PC and then save the shims.
I like the Tecmag software a lot. It still seems to be new, so there are still some issues to work out with it but Tecmag has always been really responsive to bug reports and suggestions. They have had new versions of the Mac software ready for me within a day or so sometimes when I've reported a problem. They suggested at one time that I keep a notepad near the instrument and write down both bugs and suggestions and then communicate it to them so they can improve their software.
We had a real hassle on our AM 300 installation a number of years ago because Bruker's wiring diagram didn't match the way that they actually built their instrument, and Tecmag had never seen one wired the way that ours was. (this was when the Aspect 3000 replacement systems were first coming out - in fact I think that we got one of the first). Tecmag stuck with it until it worked right. In fact, I don't remember ever having that good an effort from another instrument company.
(In response to WT's question "Is it easy to write new pulse programs? ")
That is my favorite thing about the Tecmag system. It uses a pretty much fully graphical point and click type of system for pulse sequence programming. I don't think that even the system on our 1 1/2 year old Unix-based Varian Unity Inova 400 system can beat it.
We haven't had any real problem with the Bruker vs. Tecmag issue. We do have the Aspects still up so when we are in doubt I can swap the Aspect back in (it takes about 5 minutes) and see if the problem travels with it. That solves a lot of problems because if the problem reoccurs on the Aspect, Bruker can't blame it on Tecmag and vice versa. Actually, both Bruker and Tecmag have been pretty helpful even knowing that the problem may be on the other system.
There are two places where you may have difficulty with the Bruker vs. Tecmag issue. The first is that the Bruker support people will sometimes give you things to try that assume that you have the Aspect system running. Translating those instructions to the Tecmag may sometimes take a little advice from
Tecmag. The second is if you have to do a reinstallation of the instrument, the techs that do the installation aren't familiar with the data system if you have Bruker do it. ( We had to move our instruments for a building rehab - we've got a total of 6 installations on 3 instruments!)
All in all, I'm really happy with both of our Tecmag data systems and with Tecmag itself. I think that they are a good deal and a whole lot better than the Aspect-based system.
P.S. The AC 200 upgrade moved us from a plain Aspect 300 - no Array Processor or even FFT processor - to a Pentium II PC. FFT are almost instantaneous.
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We have 4 tecmag macspects; 3 are on AC consoles and 1 is on an AM console. Although I have had some initial hardware problems which were minor, I think that their hardware is quite good and they are also extremely helpful when you have problems. Their software has also been quite easy for low level users to use and I think it is quite good for this purpose. I personally don't like their graphical pulse programming interface, but it is easy to use and I think this is just a personal thing with me. The oldest upgrade is about 3 years old and I am still quite satisfied with it. As far as service goes, I think I can't say how Bruker will respond. I have always done almost all of my own service and I haven't called in Bruker since I did any of the upgrades. I have had to swap some boards, but I did the diagnosis myself, and then simply called in the board swap, so Bruker never looked at my MacSpect consoles. I don't see why they would really care, although you are correct that they will have a hard time diagnosing some problems since they don't know anything about the MacSpect part of the instrument. Another thing I would have to say is that you shouldn't think of this as
replacing the console. We also have 3 newer Bruker D?X consoles and they
are much nicer than the MacSpecs, but they also cost many times more. Please let me know if you have any other questions.
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We have a MacSpect3 macintosh based system. No problems with hardware that are caused by the Tecmag upgrade The software does have some bugs and we spent some time figuring out problems; also certain controls are not very logical, so you have to change sometimes one parameter at more than one place; the biggest problem is the manual which is very bad and short As far as we know the hardware does work quite well with the remaining Bruker hardware, but there are drawbacks, for example, with shimming during which no other task can be accomplished. All in all we did have a lot of minor problems which needed to be fixed in 2 years. The software is easy to use as far as you do routine NMR. It seems to be designed for organic chemists. Writing pulse programs is very different from the way it is done in Bruker's Aspect, but once you understand it, it is easier Concerning responsibility: The main problem is that the Bruker really cannot tell you very much anymore, once you replace the system. You will probably run into the problem that Bruker tries to help, but they don't know how.
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