[Babcock_Hall]

Previously I wrote short protocols for three spectrophotometers, and I consider myself to be moderately well informed in the area of UV-VIS spectrophotometry.  I am trying to do the same thing for a ThermoFisher Evolution 350 (this instrument has not yet seen much use in our department).  We envision using this spectrophotometer for routine scans in the UV or visible region and for reading absorbances at single wavelengths.  The manual has less detail than we need.  Just as a for instance, there is no indication in the manual of how to set the zero percent transmittance (I am not even sure that this model allows the user to perform this operation).  I have made educated guesses about the best parameters to use, based upon prior experience.  However, how to write a parameter file for others to use is likewise unclear.  I prepared a solution of riboflavin 5-phosphate, which has three well characterized absorption peaks in the UV and visible region.  We were able to obtain a spectrum, but the software to perform single wavelength readings was not intuitive.  Output is also a problem; we were not able to do anything other than use a screenshot tool to obtain a spectrum.  I wrote a rough draft of a protocol, but I am not satisfied with it.  I plan to contact ThermoFisher to find a technical person to answer some questions that I wrote down.

I realize that this is an odd question, but does anyone have advice for test driving the software/spectrophotometer with the goal of writing an improved protocol and generating method files?