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New version of the ALV/CRTU Cuvette Rotation Unit now features stepper motor drive

From 01.04.2007 on, the ALV/CRTU will be shipped with geared stepper motors. These ensure a high torque drive capability maintaining the set speed at extremely high precision, which - in combination of a wide selectable speed range (>1 : 32 now) is almost impossible to achieve with DC-motors. The high gear ratio of the used gears ensures smooth travel even for low speeds without noticable “stepping” effect, but for extremely low speeds only.

The speed is selectable from ~0,013...~4 turns/min for the cuvette rotation, the cuvette up/down movement features speeds of  ~120 µm/min to as small as ~22 µm/h.

ALV/LSE-5004, the latest model of the ALV-Light Scattering Electronics is now available

From 01.04.2007 on, the ALV-Light Scattering Electronics ships in the latest version, ALV/LSE-5004. Featuring some significant improvements over previous models, it as well shows significantly reduced power consumption and is of course fully RoHS compatible. In detail, the following features have been added compared to the ALV/LSE-5003 version

  • High speed / low power MCU featuring up to 24 MIPS, 256kbyte EEPROM, 16 kbytes RAM
  • USB 2.1 connection to the PC instead of RS-232
  • Firmware upgradable via USB (PC and internet connection required)
  • Allows the attachment of up to two ALV-Monitor Diodes and two Pt-100 based temperature measurement probes
  • Full support for the all ALV/CRTU versions, including the latest stepper motor type
  • Full support for all ALV-Angle Encoders, including the newest 14bit type (parallel encoders are not supported)
  • Inbuilt protection electronics to independently protect up to two ALV/APDs (Avalanche Photo Diode) from damage by
    too high light levels
     

RoHS conformal products

As required per guideline 2002/95/EG and 2002/96/EG, ALV will comply to the RoHS regulations for all products newly sold within the EU from 31.06.2006.

    ALV’s new building

      ALV moving to a new building on October 27/28 2005

      ALV will move to a new building on October 27/28. On these two dates, no telephone communication with ALV will be possible. In urgent cases, please correspond to the usual e-mail adresses, however, it is unlikely you will receive answers before October 31. Thank you for your understanding.

      With moving to the new building, a newly build facility and therefore customized to ALV’s needs, ALV will be able to serve the customers needs even better, because of an significant increase in available space combined with a reorganisation of all the processes involved in manufacture/assembly and test of our products. In addition, a training center for groups of up to 12 people is part of the new building, offering the opportunity to have combined training with direct access to the instruments etc. pp. An update on this with pictures will follow as soon as possible.

      All phone/fax numbers and e-mail addresses as published on this homepage will be unchanged, still, from October 31 on, the new address for shipments to ALV should read

        ALV-GmbH
        Siemensstrasse 4

        D-63225 Langen / Hessen
        German        y

      Support for ALV-Software running on WIN-95/98 operating system to be discontinued by 01/01/2005

      More than 5 years after the latest release of the “last” 16-bit/DOS oriented WINDOWS operating sytem by Microsoft, namely from 01/01/2005 on, ALV will no longer actively support WINDOWS-95, WINDOWS/98, WINDOWS-98/SE and WIN-ME as compatible operating systems but for the “Simultaneous Multi-Angle Software”. Users should use WIN-NT, WIN-2000 (prefered), WIN-2003 or WINDOWS-XP (prefered) operating systems instead      .

        Important Information for using ALV-Correlator Control Software with INTEL HyperThreading CPUs !

        This information does only apply to users of WIN-2000, WIN-2003 and WIN-XP operating systems AND a CPU with activated HyperThreading support.

        All ALV-Correlator Control Software versions < 3.0.2.0 will not work properly with HyperThreading CPUs. These CPUs, with their ability of simulating two “virtual” CPUs being installed on the system, seem to lack certain synchronization mechanisms which were naturally “given” with just a single CPU installed and are present in an real DUAL-CPU system as well. Effectively these CPUs must be declared “incompatible” in these situations, situations, which do not introduce problems for the overwhelming number of applications, since exact synchronization of software threads is not at all required, but do infact impose significant problems, whenever such synchronisation is mandantory, as is the case in many measurement oriented applications.

        Possible Workarounds in case you encounter problems (in particular strange CR-Displays, obviously wrong AutoScaling or hang-up in the AutoScale routine , spurious count-rate alerts ...):

        • Make certain your CPU is a HT-CPU. If so, disable the HyperThreading support. Usually it can be switched off in the BIOS of your PC. Noteworthy, most larger PC-manufacturers seem to have it disabled by default - let’s guess why ;-)
           
        • Call ALV for details and update/upgrade to the latest software version. All version 3.0.2.X or larger of the ALV-Correlator Control Software fully support INTEL HyperThreading CPUs.