The latest version of Actuel (Version 1.9) for the 9103 USB Picoammeter is now available. This version includes some exciting new features.

Avoid USB Conflicts with other Devices by Selecting a Specific COM Port

You can now select the COM port of the 9103 an instance of Actuel is communicating with. Previously, Actuel would automatically connect to the next available port, which could sometimes cause conflicts with other devices using the same USB chipset from FTDI.

To use this feature, connect and turn on your 9103, and find the COM port assigned in Windows Device Manager:

Next, click the Settings button from main Actuel window, click the “Select COM Port” checkbox, and choose the appropriate port.

Note that this works for multiple instances of Actuel, whereby you can select the 9103 COM port to connect to for each instance. However, you cannot mix automatic and manual selection, and you’ll need to select the appropriate ports any time you run Actuel (since it only recalls the last used port).

Customize Actuel’s Graph Colors

You can now customize the Actuel graph by choosing colors for the axes, data line, grid, and text. You can also turn the grid display on/off.

To change the graph options, click the “Show Options” button in the Data window, and the “More Options” button near the lower-right. Your settings are saved between instances of Actuel, and you can easily reset the colors to their default.

More Improvements…

The latest version has some enhancements to the layout of the Data Window. In addition, it is now possible to Copy or Save data while sampling.

More Information on the 9103 USB Picoammeter can be found here.

Actuel 1.8 adds new features to assist with saving and graphing data. As always, updates are free and can be found here.

Set the Auto-Save Interval

Prior to Actuel 1.8, the auto-save interval for recorded graph data was every 5 minutes. The latest version gives you the option to save the data every half-minute to every 30 minutes.

Option to Show / Hide Graph

You now have the option to show or hide the graph display. This is useful if you only want to record data and not view the real-time graph information. Large data sets and fast sampling rates can cause some performance issues on slower PCs, and this option mitigates that.

Set a Fixed Range for the Graph Y-axis

By default, the Y-axis scale automatically adjusts to the range of the incoming data, with the options to display dual or single polarity, and to zero the baseline.

The fixed-range option for the Y-axis is especially useful, as it serves as a Y-axis zoom (independent of the X-axis) and also allows you to more easily compare data between multiple units or sessions.
You can set the min and max for the range as well as the units.

There have been some minor changes to the user interface to accommodate the new options. The Data window is now (slightly) larger, and the formatting options have been moved to the Data Options group.

For more information on RBD Instruments’ 9103 USB picoammeter, visit our website here –

https://rbdinstruments.com/products/picoammeter.html