Thanks John. Appreciate it. Makes things somewhat easier. I am going to leave the change I made in the Motors.dat file anyway to match the recommended JEOL setting. Joe

Quote from: Ben Buse on May 07, 2026, 11:42:01 PMIt be great if PFE could for standard spectra read standard composition from standard database and write to emsa file using this tag.
Does DTSA-2 use this tag or just NeXL?

It appears to already be implemented, but using a slightly different tag spelling:

##D2STDCMP   : NBS K-411 mineral glass,(Si:25.382),(Fe:11.209),(Mg:8.847),(Ca:11.057),(Al:0.053),(Mn:0.077),(O:43.55805)

This code was implemented a while back I think at Nicholas' request... if my comments in the code are correct.

Quote from: Joe Boesenberg on May 07, 2026, 05:31:17 PMThanks very much for the clarity. The value in my Motors.dat file is 5000 (which is 50 microns), which I will change to 10000. Does whether the value is positive or negative (10000 or -10000) indicate the direction of the backlash (positive backlashes in a higher direction than the Z value and negative the lower direction)?

I took a look at the JEOL backlash code and as far as I can tell, for JEOL 8230/8530/iSP100/iHP200F instruments we rely completely on the JEOL instrument for stage and spectrometer backlash functions. So I don't think editing these parameters will have any effect.

It be great if PFE could for standard spectra read standard composition from standard database and write to emsa file using this tag.
Does DTSA-2 use this tag or just NeXL?

John

Thanks very much for the clarity. The value in my Motors.dat file is 5000 (which is 50 microns), which I will change to 10000. Does whether the value is positive or negative (10000 or -10000) indicate the direction of the backlash (positive backlashes in a higher direction than the Z value and negative the lower direction)?

Joe

Quote from: Joe Boesenberg on May 07, 2026, 03:34:05 PMJohn

Just to be sure, and maybe I am a little dense, if the StageBacklashFlag=0, that means it is only reading the JEOL hardware, not anything in the PfE software, correct?

Thanks
Joe

Most labs will set it to these flags:

StageBacklashFlag=0;  0=false no stage backlash PFW, and nonzero for true do PFW backlash (overridden by Move dialog box)
StageBacklashType=2;  1=software backlash 2=ROM based backlash   

That means it will use the ROM hardware based backlash (not the PFE software backlash), based on the values in the MOTORS.DAT file.

John

Just to be sure, and maybe I am a little dense, if the StageBacklashFlag=0, that means it is only reading the JEOL hardware, not anything in the PfE software, correct?

Thanks
Joe

function parsedtsa2comp(value::AbstractString)::Material
    try
        sp = split(value, ",")
        name = sp[1]
        mf, density = Dict{Element,Float64}(), missing
        for item in sp[2:end]
            if item[1] == '(' && item[end] == ')'
                sp2 = split(item[2:end-1], ":")
                mf[parse(Element, sp2[1])] = 0.01 * parse(Float64, sp2[2])
            else
                density = parse(Float64, item)
            end
        end
        return material(name, mf, density=density)
    catch err
        @warn "Error parsing composition $(value) - $(err)"
    end
end
This code reads the contents of the ##D2STDCOMP tab.  It splits the value on commas.
The first item in the resulting list is material name. Subsequent (except maybe the last) are like "(Fe:43.2)" or "(Al:12.3)", an element abbreviation followed by a mass percentage.  The last item could be a number representing the optional density in g/cm^3.

Quote from: Joe Boesenberg on May 07, 2026, 12:26:26 PMAlso, does PFE do the same magnitude backlash as the JEOL software setup (now 100 microns) and in the same direction (approaching from under or over the Z value). John Glass mentioned the JEOL software approaches from under the Z value.   

If you are using the so called "ROM" based stage (or spectrometer) backlash, PFE uses the backlash values specified in the MOTORS.DAT file in 1/100th micrometer units.

See above posts for details and let us know if you have further questions.

John

I had the JEOL engineers here yesterday trying to address the stage issues on my iSP-100. Several hours after saving a point the stage will return to the proper X and Y positions, but the Z is often visibly off by 5-10 microns - enough to screw around with your analysis. John Glass noticed the Z backlash in. the JEOL software was set to do a 50 micron backlash rather than the 100 micron backlash, so it has now been changed and I am testing it. One of the questions that came up was whether PfE was doing the backlash when it returned to the point for analysis. We determined that it was indeed, but we were unsure what the probewin.ini file meant concerning the backlash.  There are two lines:

StageBacklashFlag=0;  0=false no stage backlash PFW, and nonzero for true do PFW backlash (overridden by Move dialog box)

StageBacklashType=2;  1=software backlash 2=ROM based backlash   


Can you explain what these mean?

Also, does PFE do the same magnitude backlash as the JEOL software setup (now 100 microns) and in the same direction (approaching from under or over the Z value). John Glass mentioned the JEOL software approaches from under the Z value.

Thanks. Joe