Spectrometer control
Commercial spectrometers and devices mostly come with their own control software. While generally fine, this often limits what is (easily) possible with the setup, and it makes integrating additional components pretty difficult. A typical examples for an EPR method where usually each group uses their own lab-written control software is time-resolved EPR (TREPR) spectroscopy. Of course one can use a pulsed EPR spectrometer to operate in “transient mode” – but not everybody can afford the investment of a pulsed machine. Other combinations, such as in situ electrochemistry, definitely require creativity beyond what is possible with the supplied software. The method of choice is a modular control software allowing to se the vendor-supplied drivers as much as possible, but abstracts from these low-level modules and provides both, a unified user experience and a simple plug-in architecture for additional devices.