X to IM7

For many years, the Zennium XC/PRO/X with Thales has been a trusted and proven platform for electrochemical research, and it continues to serve countless laboratories every day. The IM7 with Zahner Lab is the next step built on that experience: a fresh start in which the Zahner Lab software and the IM7 firmware were developed from the ground up - a complete rewrite around a modern, consistent control concept. It carries forward the measurement expertise and data quality Zahner is known for, in a workstation that is simpler and more intuitive to work with.

It is worth being clear about one point up front: this is not a software update for an instrument you already own. The IM7 is a new electrochemical workstation built around a newly developed CPU, and Zahner Lab together with the new firmware runs on this redesigned hardware. Moving to the IM7 therefore means acquiring the new instrument, and with it the complete set of improvements described on this page - from the software and connectivity all the way down to the measurement hardware itself.

For you as a Zennium XC/PRO/X user, what changes is everything around the measurement: the user interface, the file formats, the way you build experiments, the way you connect to the instrument, and the hardware that acquires your data.

This page is written for Zennium XC/PRO/X owners. It walks through what changes when you switch from Zennium XC/PRO/X with Thales to the IM7 with Zahner Lab, and what you gain along the way.

A New Software Experience: Zahner Lab

On the IM7, Zahner Lab takes the place of Thales as Zahner’s electrochemical measurement software. Rather than adapting the previous interface, Zahner Lab introduces a newly designed user interface, built from the ground up to be simpler and more intuitive, so common tasks are quicker and clearer.

Just as important, parametrization is easier across the board, with more freedom in how you combine parameters. You set the parameters you need, in the units you expect, whether you are reproducing an established protocol or exploring a new one.

Much of this comes from how Zahner Lab is built. Every method is composed from the same small set of primitives - chiefly ramps and polarizations - rather than being implemented separately, one method at a time. This is a meaningful change: when each method is implemented individually, the available options can naturally differ from one method to the next. Because Zahner Lab builds every method on a common foundation, a capability that belongs to that foundation is available consistently across methods. Two examples stand out:

Autoranging almost everywhere. Nearly all methods now support automatic current-range switching, including methods such as cyclic voltammetry (CV).
Parallel acquisition that scales. Synchronous multi-channel acquisition is part of the same foundation, and with the new PAD42 card it now extends to up to 32 additional synchronous channels - double the previous maximum (described in detail below).

From Scripts to Drag and Drop: the Custom Experiment Builder

On the Zennium, automating a measurement sequence meant writing a script in the Thales script editor or assembling a procedure in the text-based DC sequencer. Both were powerful, but both required you to express your experiment as text and to learn their specific syntax.

The IM7 replaces both of them with the Custom Experiment Builder. Instead of writing text, you assemble your experiment visually from drag-and-drop blocks. The builder is based on Blockly, an open-source library from Google that provides a visual programming interface using drag-and-drop blocks. Complex logic such as loops, conditions, and variables is available as blocks too, so you can build everything from a simple polarization sequence to a multi-step protocol - without any programming knowledge.

Power users are not boxed in, either. The same block setup can generate Python code that uses the zahner_link library, working script that you can read, run, and extend. If you want to move from drag-and-drop design to fully scriptable experiments, see Getting Started with Python.

A Simpler, More Direct Connection

The way your computer talks to the instrument changes fundamentally - and gets much simpler.

With the Zennium, control runs through several stages: your application communicates with the Thales software over TCP/IP, and Thales in turn drives the Zennium over USB from a Windows computer. A measurement therefore involves Thales running on a Windows machine alongside your application.

With the IM7, the instrument is controlled directly over Ethernet. There is no intermediate software to install or keep running: your application connects straight to the IM7 using the zahner_link library - the very same library that powers Zahner Lab itself. Internally, zahner_link communicates with the IM7 over a WebSocket connection exchanging JSON messages, but you simply work with the high-level Python API (a C++ API is available as well).

This has several practical benefits:

One library for everything. The GUI and your automation use the same interface, so what you configure in Zahner Lab maps directly onto what you script.
Operating-system independent. Because control runs over standard Ethernet, it no longer requires a Windows PC running Thales; you can connect from the platform of your choice.
Networked and remote operation. The IM7 lives on your network, so it can be viewed and controlled from anywhere in a networked lab environment.

Higher Sampling Rates and More Data Points

The IM7 samples faster and captures more data than the Zennium, and impedance (EIS) spectra are acquired faster as well. Its inputs reach a maximum sampling rate of up to 900 kHz on up to two channels, and a total throughput of up to 3 MHz across all active channels - for example when many channels are measured in parallel through PAD42 cards. In practice this means finer time resolution for fast transients and the ability to record more points per measurement.

How those samples are turned into the data points you receive is worth understanding. The instrument continuously samples at a high internal rate and then averages many samples together to deliver results at the output data rate (ODR) you choose - lower ODR settings give more internal averaging and lower noise, higher ODR settings give more frequent updates. This relationship is explained in detail in Sampling Rate vs Output Data Rate.

The Biggest Leap: PAD42 vs PAD4

For everyone investigating stacked objects such as batteries and fuel cells, the most significant upgrade is the new parallel acquisition card PAD42.

On the Zennium, parallel impedance acquisition was handled by the PAD4 : an 18-bit card with four sense channels, with up to four cards installed - up to 16 additional parallel channels.

The IM7 series introduces the PAD42, and the improvement is twofold:

Higher resolution. The PAD42 acquires at 24-bit instead of the PAD4’s 18-bit. The additional bits translate directly into a wider dynamic range and substantially lower noise in the measured spectra.
More channels. Each PAD42 still provides four sense inputs, but the IM7x supports up to eight PAD42 cards - up to 32 additional parallel channels, double what a Zennium X could offer. All channels are measured truly in parallel with the main channel, avoiding the time lags that a multiplexer would introduce.
Flexible channel configuration. Voltage- and current-sensing channels can be mixed freely within the same measurement, and the impedances you evaluate can be composed from any combination of channels rather than fixed pairings. This gives you full freedom in how stack, half-cell, and segment impedances are defined.

The benefit of the higher resolution is easy to see in a real measurement. The Nyquist plot below shows the same EIS spectrum acquired with a PAD4 (18-bit) and a PAD42 (24-bit):

The 24-bit PAD42 data is markedly cleaner and less scattered than the 18-bit PAD4 data, which makes a tangible difference when you fit equivalent circuits or resolve small features in a stack.

For the full specifications, connection schemes, and example setups, see the PAD42 product page.

Getting Started

Connect the instrument to your network, open Zahner Lab, and add your IM7 in the Device Manager - the Quickstart Guide walks you through the first connection step by step. From there, Zahner Lab is your central hub for running measurements, and the Custom Experiment Builder and APIs are ready whenever you want to automate.