Device Management

The device management in devctrl.devices may be slightly overkill for small setups, but it has two important advantages over just hard-coding devices:

1. Device classes with exchangable devices:

   Each device type (laser, amplifier, voltmeter…) has a base class which implements common functionalities. For example, all lasers will have a off() and on() method. This means you do not have to duplicate your code when you have use a different laser because a coworker stole yours, but you can simply connect to a different one. The disadvantage is that each device has to implemented as a subclass of the base class, which usually means writing boilerplate code for a pylablib device.

2. Dummy implementations: Each device class has a “dummy implementation”, which implements all methods but does nothing under the hood.

   By connecting just dummy devices, you can test large parts of your software without ever connecting to a device, which enables faster testing and working on the software outside the lab.

Device Discovery

When implemented, devices can be discovered automatically. For devices where this is not implemented, you must manually register the device like this devctrl.device.lamp.BenthamPsu610.add_device("name=Halogen-Lamp serial_number=32540/1 default_current=8.5000"), where the argument of add_device must contain the necessary information such as GPIB name or IP address.