The preset invention relates to a thermal analysis apparatuse.
It can be pointed out that determination of thermal analysis properties take a long time in measurement time. The measurement usually requires several hours and, in a long case, may take several days. Meanwhile, during measurement it is not necessarily required for a user to be present close to a heating oven. In a case that a laboratory or the like placed with a heating oven and a sitting room or the like which are distant from each other for safety sake or the like, it has been a common practice for a user to be present in the laboratory when beginning measurement and to thereafter reciprocate between the laboratory and the sitting room to see data situations. Due to this, there has been a need to watch data during measurement from a sitting room or the like.
Conventionally, technologies for satisfying such demands included a network window system, such as X-Window, that is adopted for a user interface of a thermal analysis apparatus. The adoption of X-Window enables remote display and input to a thermal analysis apparatus through an X server on the network. The control and monitor with the thermal analysis apparatus has been enabled at a sitting room by setting up an X server within a sitting room and a thermal analysis apparatus other than the user interface within the laboratory with a network medium connected there between.
However, the conventional technology includes the following problems.
(1) Because all the displays and inputs related to measurement are carried out at a remote site, there may be encountered inconvenience in the measuring technique. For example, the procedure of TG before starting measurement is as follows.
(a) Setting a sample pan and a reference pan on a sensor.
(b) Waiting for stabilization of a TG signal and, after stabilization, instructing that the TG signal is currently 0 mg to the thermal analysis apparatus.
(c) Putting a sample in the sample pan.
(d) Waiting for stabilization of the TG signal, and after stabilization, instructing the thermal analysis apparatus to weigh the sample.
(e) Inputting a temperature program and so on to the thermal analysis apparatus.
(f) Providing a measurement start instruction to the thermal analysis apparatus.
Among these, steps (a) and (c) are operations conducted at the sensor of the thermal analysis apparatus, whereas steps (b), (d), (e) and (f) are operations performed through the user interface of the thermal analysis apparatus. It is therefore extremely inconvenient if the user interface is placed at a remote site.
(2) Because even one input to the keyboard, mouse movement or a slight display change is sent via the network medium, communication is done at all times and the amount of communication data becomes enormous.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a thermal analysis apparatus in which a user interface is operated close to a sensor and data is remotely monitored while suppressing the amount of communication data on the network medium.
The present invention has been developed in order to solve the above problem, and has principal constituent elements comprising a heating oven, a temperature sensor, a physical amount sensor, heating oven control means, data accumulating means, data transmission request receiving means, data transmitting means, measurement user interface means, data specifying means, data transmission request transmitting means, data receiving means, data display means, monitor user interface means and a network medium.
The apparatus is structured such that a measuring section and a monitor section are connected by the network medium wherein the measurement user interface is placed around the heating oven so that data at an arbitrary time point is monitored at a remote site. Accordingly, inconvenience encountered when starting measurement is eliminated which is encountered in a case that the measurement interface is located at a remote site.
Also, the amount of communication data is decreased by the following two effects.
(1) Because data is sent onto the network medium when required, the frequency of communications is decreased as compared with the conventional example.
(2) Communication content is changed from user interface operation with extremely high concreteness into data as abstract one.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds