Drivers

Several Modules can load Instrument drivers (formerly "Device classes") which are small code snippets allowing you to include and use any equipment with SweepMe!. It basically is a python file called main.py written in the programming language python 3.6 (32bit) (https://www.python.org/).

A list of all publicly available drivers can be found here: https://sweep-me.net/devices

Download

Version manager

You can download or update Drivers via the Version Manager (menu "Tools" -> "Modules & Devics") which is part of the SweepMe! main installation.

Direct download

Drivers can be directly downloaded via the website (https://sweep-me.net/devices) after registering an account (https://sweep-me.net/register).

Contribution and upload

To make SweepMe! a powerful tool, we are relying on you! Help us to build up a large library of Drivers. Implement your own instruments and contribute them. Here is a guideline:

• Contact us if you have developed a driver. We will register the driver name on the server and make an initial check of the code.
• Then, we can give you account rights to maintain the driver and upload them to the system using the devzone.
• Alternatively, you can send us drivers and we will upload and maintain them.

Please note that we try to publish all drivers whenever possible under MIT license to have rather uniform landscape of licenses and to make it easy to use our drivers for different purposes. To contribute a driver it also important to have all rights. For example, other authors might have contributed or your employer (university or company) has the rights about the drivers. Furthermore, the license of used third-partty libraries must be considered. Please contact us if you have any question.

For companies, we have a standard agreement for contributing drivers. Let us know if you like to contribute your drivers.

Places and folders

SweepMe! can load Drivers from different places:

pre-installed: These Drivers come with your installation of SweepMe! You can find them in the folder 'Devices' of your SweepMe! installation, e.g "C:\SweepMe!\SweepMe!_1.5.5\Devices" if you use the suggested installation path

installed: These Drivers are obtained using the [[version manager] (menu "Modules&Devices"). Every Driver you download is versioned and will be copied to "C:\ProgramData\SweepMe!\Devices". These folders are read-only. Please, do not modify them to keep the file integrity. You can delete these versions using the version manager of SweepMe! Please also do not add any Driver yourself, except you know why. You can make a copy of these files if you like to test modifications as described below.

custom: These Drivers are placed in the public folder of SweepMe! called "CustomDevices". You can find this folder via the folder link on your desktop that was created during the installation or via the Menu of SweepMe! 'File' -> 'Open Folder' -> 'Public'. We recommend to use this folder to create your own Drives as this folder will not be changed if you install a newer version of SweepMe! so that you can still access your Drivers with any further SweepMe! version.

These different kinds of Drivers are shown in the version manager of SweepMe! having the label pre-installed, installed, or custom.

Structure

SweepMe! searches for new Drivers in the folders described above. Each Driver has to have a name of the following structure:

<Type of the Module>-<Name of the manufacturer>_<Name of the device model>

Examples:

• SMU-Keithley_2400
• LCRmeter-HP_4284A
• Logger-PC_Mouse

The <Type of the Module> must be related to the Modules provided by SweepMe! and every Module provides different functionality to control a certain type of equipment.

The Driver itself is a file which always has the name "main.py" and which can load further python modules, [dll]s, or simple text files as needed to get your Driver working.

The Sequencer procedure provides various semantic standard functions which can be used at certain points during the run of the measurement sequence.

Documentation

Each device class that has been uploaded to sweep-me.net automatically gets a webpage here [[1]]. One can find there further details about the instrument, the handling of the driver, and links to manufacturer or the manual. Feel free to contact us if further information are needed.

Creating new Drivers

You can implement Drivers on your own into SweepMe!. How to program a Driver is described here: Device Class Programming

Create a copy of an existing one

• Open SweepMe!'s version manager using the menu 'Modules & Devices'
• Navigate to the Device you like to copy and choose a version
• Right-click the version and choose "Copy to public folder 'CustomDevices'"
• Right-click on the new version and select "Open in folder" or "Open in editor" to find or modify

Create a new one using the version manager

• Open SweepMe!'s version manager using the menu 'Modules & Devices'.
• Navigate to the Device you like to copy and choose a version.
• Right-click the version and choose "Copy to public folder 'CustomDevices'".
• Open the public folder "CustomDevices" (e.g. using the main menu via File -> Open folder -> Devices -> public).
• Rename the folder regarding module name, manufacturer and model.
• Delete the info.ini file if the new Driver was not automatically removed.
• Restart SweepMe! to reload all Drivers.

Manually create one

• Open the public folder "CustomDevices" (e.g. using the main menu via File -> Open folder -> Devices -> public).
• Create a folder with module name, manufacturer and model as defined above
• Add a main.py
• Insert the minimal working example as given in Device Class Programming

Open/Modify

You can open any Driver in SweepMe! with the included Pnotepad editor. Any change to the Drive will automatically affect its operation after saving the file and starting a new run. Versions that have the origin 'installed' cannot be modifed as they are versioned. Use the Device Class Programming guide to find all possibilities.