Labbot suite — change log

What changed in each release of the Labbot software, for users and IT. Newest first. The detail behind each point is in the manuals (Help ▸ Labbot Core Manual, the Admin / Installation Manual, the Labbot Lens manual).

1.5.2 — 2026-10

A small update to Labbot Core: stronger stirring and a fluorescence-window fix. Nothing to do when upgrading from 1.5.1 - the library, accounts and data stay as they are.

Labbot Core — changed

• Stirring speed is one step stronger at every setting: speed 1 was too weak to keep a stir bar turning reliably. Setting 1 now stirs as 2 did, 2 as 3, and so on; 7 is the instrument's former 8. Procedures keep their numbers and stir one step faster.

Labbot Core — fixed

• Fluorescence window: "Detector saturated" is judged over the From-To range only. Light elsewhere on the detector (for example the excitation's second-order scatter near 560 nm) could make a 300-450 nm spectrum report saturation.

1.5.1 — 2026-10

A smaller release for labs with several instruments and years of old procedures: start clean without losing the old library, and set the same accounts up on every PC.

Upgrade notes

• Windows 10 version 1809 (LTSC 2019) or later, or Windows 11, is required. Windows 10 1607 (LTSB 2016) and older can't run Labbot Core 1.5 ("icuuc.dll is missing"); the installers now refuse to install there instead. Check with Win+R, winver. This applies to 1.5.0 as well.
• Upgrading from 1.3.x: the old procedure library is kept as an archive, unchanged, in C:\ProgramData\Labbot\Legacy\. The first start asks once: take the old procedures over (as in 1.5.0) or keep them as legacy procedures and start with a clean library. The titrants are taken over either way. The choice can't be changed later.
• Upgrading from 1.5.0: nothing to do - the library, accounts and data stay as they are.
• Old experiment data from 1.3.x is still moved by hand, as in 1.5.0 (Admin manual, "Upgrading").

Labbot Core — new

• Data ▸ Legacy Procedures… (every account): the old procedures kept as legacy - find one by name, type or titrant, read all its settings, and Import a copy into your own procedures.
• User ▸ Export Users… / Import Users… (Admin): move the accounts to another PC. The file holds names, roles and the sign-in and deletion settings - no passwords, so it can be passed on freely; a file changed after the export is refused. Import shows which accounts are new, adds only those you leave ticked (an account already on the PC is never changed), gives them one temporary password that each user must change at the first sign-in, and can apply the file's settings.
• Delete an account nobody has ever signed in to (Users window, Delete) - a mistyped name or an unwanted import; the name can then be used again. An account that has been used can still only be disabled, so the log stays complete.

Installers — changed

• Reinstalling no longer asks whether to install into the existing folder.
• Create a desktop shortcut now gives one for Labbot Lens too, not only for Labbot Core - and only one each: another shortcut to the same app on the desktop (made by hand, by an earlier install for one user, or pointing at an older install folder) is removed. Without the tick, only shortcuts whose app is gone are removed.

Labbot Lens — fixed

• A luminescence detector in a run was shown as absorbance (an absorbance axis and the "A > 2.0 unreliable" band over raw counts); it now reads Luminescence, raw counts, with its integration time.

Labbot Core — changed

• Hold at the end of a temperature scan (Delay after each way): the hold is split into equal parts as close to the scan's own point spacing as possible, with a spectrum at the end of each - the last one at the end of the hold - so the time axis keeps about the same spacing, and the hold lasts the time set; a slow round of spectra no longer stretches it. With Spectra during eq. on the hold is sampled like an equilibration, at the procedure's Interval instead.
• Stop during a measurement finishes the round of spectra in progress, records the point and then ends the run; press Stop now to end at once.
• The slow-round warning in the procedure editor now gives the time between spectra, and only appears where a round has to fit in the set interval (baseline and equilibration with Spectra during eq., and then the hold).

Labbot Core — fixed

• A crash right after Save in the procedure editor when the end temperature had just been changed with the instrument connected; the same in Initiate Run when it was cancelled straight after opening a temperature scan.
• The green cursor line in the absorbance and fluorescence windows was short right after a measurement; it is full height again.
• The RALS window's stirring popup had no label; it reads Stirring speed.

1.5.0 — 2026-10

A large release: the software is renamed (Labbot is now Labbot Core, the Viewer is now Labbot Lens, the instrument is the Labbot DMAP), gets user accounts, a managed data store, a connect-time self-test, a new temperature control and a new light-scattering (RALS) reading. Read the upgrade notes below before installing.

Upgrade notes

• Install with the new installer, as a Windows administrator, once per PC (Labbot Core_1.5.0_Installer.exe). It installs Labbot Core, Labbot Lens and the drivers and prepares C:\ProgramData\Labbot. Read the Admin / Installation Manual first - it comes with the installers.
• The first start runs a setup wizard that creates the first Admin account and asks two site choices (how people sign in; whether deleting data is restricted to Admin). From then on everyone signs in.
• The instrument firmware must be updated to 1.5.3. The installer brings it. The first time an Admin or Manager connects, Labbot Core offers the update (about a minute; keep the instrument on). Until then other accounts can't connect.
• Procedures and titrants from the old version are taken over automatically.
• Old experiment data is not moved automatically. New runs are saved in C:\ProgramData\Labbot\Experiments\<account>\. Runs in the old Documents\LABBOT data folders stay where they are and still open in Labbot Lens; how to bring them in is in the Admin manual ("Upgrading").
• The Viewer is replaced by Labbot Lens. The installer uninstalls the old Labbot versions, Labbot_FWU and Viewer 2 (Admin manual, "Upgrading").
• Both apps go into one folder, C:\Program Files\Labbot\ (Labbot Core\ and Labbot Lens\ inside).
• The pH meter keeps its driver. The installer makes sure the pH meter's port uses Prolific driver 3.6.81.357 and removes newer Prolific drivers, which don't work with it; it no longer asks to repair or remove the driver. Keep Windows Update from installing drivers on this PC (Admin manual, "The pH meter's driver").
• Both applications are 64-bit (Labbot Core and Labbot Lens), for 64-bit Windows.
• The installers are not code-signed yet. Windows may warn about an unknown publisher ("More info" ▸ "Run anyway"); the Admin manual explains how IT can allow them.

Labbot Core — new

• Accounts and roles. Sign-in with three roles - User, Manager, Admin. Each person has their own procedures and titrants next to a shared library that Managers curate (promote / demote). Self-service password change, a lockable run window for unattended runs, an optional Windows-bound sign-in, recovery for lost Admin passwords, and an audit trail in the log.
• Experiment data in one managed place, one folder per account, with Data ▸ Experiment Data…: find runs by date, status, user and project, annotate them, export a copy, open them in Labbot Lens, delete (optionally restricted to Admin). Manual measurements are listed there too. Projects group runs per customer or study. IT can move the data to another drive or share.
• Connect self-test. Every connect checks temperature control, the syringe pump, the filter wheel, the instrument memory, the light-scattering detector, the spectrometers' darks and the flash lamp. A failure says what to check - only things the operator can reach - and the button turns into Run self-test again. An instrument without a syringe pump works with the pump functions disabled.
• Firmware update at connect (see the upgrade notes).
• The run window:
  • All detectors in one spectrum graph - each in its own colour - or one detector at a time, zoomed, with its settings as the title.
  • Two time-graph scripts per procedure, plotted together (the second on a right-hand axis) with a legend.
  • Go when ready: press Go before the start temperature is reached and the run starts by itself once the sample has settled.
  • Pause / Resume a run.
  • Lock the window for an unattended run: its controls are disabled and it can't be closed until the same account unlocks it with their password.
  • When the run is done a message says so and offers to open it in Labbot Lens. Closing the window while a run is going asks first.
• Temperature. Temperature scans move at a set scan rate and wait until the sample - not just the holder - has settled ("Moving to …"), using the firmware's sample model; the recorded temperature is the sample's, and a temperature scan plots against it. The range 6-87 °C can be used; Initiate Run refuses a procedure whose temperatures are outside it. A temperature to return to after the run, a hold at the end of each way, and alerts for temperature faults.
• Light scattering (RALS). A RALS time per procedure (0.1–30 s, default 2 s): the reading is taken through the stirring, and a longer time averages out the flow. Values with two decimals; a failed reading is recorded as missing and the run goes on.
• pH titrations dose adaptively towards the target, check the titrant's direction before starting, and pause for a syringe refill instead of stopping. A diprotic acid titrant type.
• Four example procedures (TMPL - thermal, pH, concentration and kinetics stability assays) in the shared library from the first start, to duplicate and adapt; described in the manual.
• Luminescence mode. A fluorescence detector can be set to Luminescence: it records light the sample emits on its own - bioluminescence (for example luciferase and ATP assays) or chemiluminescence - with the excitation flash held off. No dark spectrum is subtracted (it would remove the signal); the spectrometer's automatic dark correction is used instead, and a luminescence-only procedure needs no Prepare step. Luminescence detectors run alongside absorbance, fluorescence and RALS in the same run, work in the fluorometer window for single readings, and open in Labbot Lens.
• More kinds of procedure: monitoring only, RALS only, no spectrometer at all; Test scripts checks the scripts against the procedure's detectors.
• The absorbance blank is kept and can be reused. Take the blank once in the absorbance window (Blank); it is kept until Labbot Core closes, so repeated samples don't need re-blanking, and a run with the same wavelength range and averages offers to reuse it instead of taking a new one. Changing the range or the averages discards it.
• Help built in: the full manual (Help ▸ Labbot Core Manual), a ? button in every window, tooltips, and Help ▸ Report a Problem…. The manual has new chapters on designing an experiment, interpreting the data, the example procedures and eight worked application protocols (pH stability, phase separation, shear-induced fibrils, thermal stability, binding with inner-filter correction and more).
• Service calibrations for Admin (Service menu): the pump offset (after a new syringe), the filter-wheel offset and the absorbance offset can be set again on site - measured by the instrument, shown before anything is written, saved with Save. Until now only the factory could set them. See the Admin manual, "Service calibrations".
• Logs for support: a session log and a log inside every run folder.
• Procedures can be edited without the instrument once this PC has connected.
• Window sizes and positions are remembered per account.
• Meters: Orion ProStar PH211, Orion Star A211 / A215 (pH, conductivity), ThermoWorks USB reference thermometer.

Labbot Core — changed

• Status shows "Measuring" while readings are taken, and the status line shows the instrument's serial number and firmware.
• Data files: each run also writes <name>_points.mxt, one table with every point's values; the text export is written at the end of every run, also a stopped one. A second time-graph script gets its own plot file (<name>_TD2.mxt), so both open as plots in Labbot Lens. Absorbance takes a fresh dark for every reading.
• Export copies the whole run, including the raw spectra, so the copy opens fully in Labbot Lens.
• Import refuses a run folder's procedure summary (it isn't a procedure file).
• The run-time estimate follows the new temperature control and the RALS time.
• The procedure editor no longer shows an equilibration-time hint for temperature scans - the run now waits for the sample itself.

Labbot Core — fixed

Many stability fixes since 1.3.4, among them: crashes when a spectrometer was missing at connect or a file was locked; a filter wheel that couldn't be homed again after being blocked; runs that waited forever for a failed RALS reading or meter value; a busy cursor over messages; buttons and texts cut off in dialogs; a procedure edited without the instrument connected getting its temperatures set to 0 °C.

Labbot Lens — new (replaces the Viewer)

• One window with three tabs - Experiment, Spectrum, Plot - and its own manual, ? buttons and Report a Problem….
• Opens the experiment from Labbot Core (Open in Labbot Lens).
• The instrument's original data is kept as it is and marked "(original)" - but your own plots can be added, edited and duplicated right there. The run's own plots stay as recorded: Duplicate opens a copy to name and edit. For anything else, work on a copy (Export in Labbot Core) - a copy can be loaded next to its original.
• Calculated plots from scripts, with checks and suggestions; hide the equilibration readings; overlay several plots; multiplot export and a report.
• Runs without spectra (RALS only, temperature only) and luminescence open.
• Saturated wavelengths are marked; absorbance warning bands.
• Spectrum comparisons can be saved as ensembles.
• Installs on users' own PCs - for all users, or just for one user without administrator rights.

Firmware FMX8 1.5.3 (from 1.2.3)

• Temperature control rebuilt: better PID and output limits, ramps at a set rate, a model of the sample temperature with a "settled" flag, overheat and runaway protection.
• Light scattering: the reading runs in the background through the stirring (the RALS time), the stirrer no longer disturbs it, and an unresponsive converter is reported instead of hanging the instrument.
• The button light shows the instrument's state: green settled, cyan moving, blue control off, blue pulsing no PC contact, white homing, magenta laser on, red pulsing fault.
• More reliable filter wheel and pump homing; diagnostics for the self-test.